BuddyPress WordPress Themes 2013: Trends

BuddyPress has come a long way since its conceptualization in 2008. What is BuddyPress anyway?

According to WPMU.org:

“BuddyPress is a suite of plugins for WordPress that transforms into a fully functional social network platform.
When installed on WordPress Multisite it provides features that lets your members socially interact with each other within a multi-blogging platform environment. It provides all the features that allow you to build a community on your network. BuddyPress enables you to build passionate users around a specific niche.”

Buddypress.org puts it quite succinctly:

“BuddyPress is Social Networking, the WordPress way.”

The concept of turning a WordPress site into a social network is indeed radical and has not been lacking in challenges. What is amazing is that BuddyPress users of today find a plugin that fully integrates into ordinary WordPress as opposed to the few who were tinkering with WPMU a couple of years back. With its latest version, 1.6, BuddyPress is an easy to use plugin with good content management capability. You can enjoy the benefit of user generated content with the ability to moderate and control spam posts using existing infrastructure on WordPress. BuddyPress also gives you the functionality you expect from any social networking site. You can add and remove friends, create groups and much more.

With all that BuddyPress is offering now what more is store for this great plugin? The battle cry of the developers is theme integration. More and more people would like to turn their existing sites into social networking sites without discarding their existing theme capabilities. Come to think of it, if you have a great ecommerce theme, why would you want discard your eCommerce capabilities for social networking. The challenge for theme developers is to create or redesign themes that integrate the capabilities of buddypress. Social networking, in tandem with mobile devices, has made our world smaller, closer, and within reach. It is undeniable.On the other hand, BuddyPress developers also have to do their share to make the plugin more seamless. While the task doesn’t seem easy there is indeed a host of talented, highly motivated people working to reach the summit from both sides. We are looking forward with much eagerness to their success!

On Becoming a WordPress Professional

How does one become a certified WordPress professional indeed? Earning your stripes as a WordPress professional does not come from a course you enroll in and study for X number of years in your regular university. Neither do you get a degree or a diploma for the numerous WordPress conferences, seminars or webinars you attend. In truth, becoming a WordPress professional is not age bound, race bound, location bound, language bound or educational background bound. One key ingredient is the willingness to learn, make mistakes, and learn all over again.

Many current WordPress professionals and practitioners did not start out as such. Perhaps some have come out from the corporate world and taken a radical sabbatical from their daily grind while others probably started out in their dorm room or garage. Maybe others began tinkering with WordPress while they were in their teens while some are going through a second wind in their careers. The Internet has this built-in democratic leveling quality where anyone can make it regardless. Since the year is about to end, maybe some of you are considering a quiet change or transition into something else – a new career path of sorts. You don’t necessarily have to be a developer or a designer to be a WordPress professional. Here are a few options for you to think of if you are considering a shift into the exciting world of WordPress:

Developer

Web development is the back-end of the website, the programming and interactions on the pages. A web developer focuses on how a site works and how the customers get things done on it. Good web developers know how to program CGI and scripts like PHP. They understand about how web forms work and can keep a site running effectively.A good web developer will have excellent programming skills and be able to use a range of programming tools. He or she will be able to provide solutions to give a website the functions required. Web developers will use a range of programming tools such as ASP, Javascript, XML and SQL. The focus is more on the backend and the functionality of the site.

Designer (Themes)

Web design determines the look and feel of a website. It covers the layout, navigation and colors of a website. Web design is more concerned with aesthetics and user experience than functions. A web designer will make a website easy to use and fit for purpose. A good web designer will have graphic design skills and a good understanding of marketing. He or she will know how to grab the attention of visitors and encourage them to explore a website. A web designer is concerned with how a site looks and how the customers interact with it. Good web designers know how to put together the principles of design to create a site that looks great. They also understand about usability and how to create a site that customers want to navigate around in.

Developer (Plugins and Widgets)

Plug-ins and widgets are a great way to enhance the functionality of your site by adding in extra features. These can be placed anywhere inside your template by function hooks. You can start creating and eventually selling stand-alone plugins that add value to existing or new themes.

Support Professional

One of the most common deficiencies in the WordPress themes marketplace is the lack of or absence of theme support. You can start a career by being part of a support team that is responsible for providing after-sales support to customers who have purchased specific themes.

Consultant/Marketing

Providing consultancy services, networking, and hooking up clients with designers and developers is another option to becoming a WordPress Professional. Many times, a lot of great designers do poorly sales-wise because of a lack of marketing skills. You can offer your services to acts as a marketing consultant to WordPress designers and developers who have little or no time to do the marketing themselves.

Blogger/ Theme Description Writer

With the explosion of WordPress themes in the marketplace, there is very little difference between one theme to the next and a lot of them look like clones. You can offer your services as a writer to create a marketing hook for designers and developers who would rather write code than a marketing spiel.

Documentation Writer

Providing appropriate and useful detailed documentation that is easy to understand even by WordPress beginners is another option. Transcribing the installation and setting up process in easy to follow steps adds value to the theme and a well written piece will mean less resources spent on support.

WordPress Trainor

If you have acquired a certain level of proficiency in WordPress and you are confident enough about what you know, you can also try going into teaching and training.

These are just a few ideas to think of as you consider starting or shifting to a career as a WordPress professional.

Get Your Free Themes from WPBusinessBundle.com

Have you seen the the all new and improved WP Business Bundle? If you haven’t then you need to check it out. If you have been bombarded with numerous WordPress themes in the marketplace and you are suffering from “choice overload” head on out to WP Business Bundle for select WordPress Themes specifically targeted to meet the needs of businesses, corporate portfolios, professionals and other types of business-related websites.

WP Business Bundle has gone through a makeover and the generous folks over there are giving away two great Premium themes for free. That’s right – FREE! By simply signing up with them you can download a stunning Business Theme (Prospect) and a creative Portfolio Theme (Digifoto) for zero dollars! You don’t even have to choose because you can download one or even both.

Prospect Free WordPress Theme is a vibrant and dynamic business theme with features like 10 pre-made skins, an attractive slider, clean and easy to use breadcrumbs navigation, high-end aesthetics and many more excellent features that will appeal to the elite business crowd you move in.

Digifoto Free WordPress Theme is a Portfolio theme with 2 built-in design options (dark and light), numerous custom widgets, unique sliders, drag and drop forms, and other essential features for you to create an impressive online portfolio at zero cost to you.

Once you register to create your free account, simply confirm your email and WP Business Bundle will email the themes to you right away. Unlike most free themes out there, what’s cool about WP Business Bundle free themes is that you can expect:

  • Theme Updates
  • Cool Resources
  • New Free Themes
  • No Cost – No Obligation
  • Cancel Anytime Policy

You can also find useful plugins at WP Business Bundle. Since these plugins are designed to complement all WP Business Bundle Themes. Together, WP Business Bundle Themes and Plugins make a truly winning combination.

Check out WP Business Bundle.com and Download your Free Themes Today!

WordPress Theme Marketplaces 2013: Trends

A good way to spot emerging trends in the WordPress themes market would be to look at the behaviour of theme marketplaces like Themeforest, Mojo Themes and other boutique WordPress marketplaces. Here are some of our observations of what is currently ongoing and our take on what is to be:

Themeforest – The WordPress Marketplace Giant

With about 2500 themes in its inventory, Themeforest is probably the largest theme marketplace there is. Collis Ta’eed, founder of Envato which runs Themeforest, observed that the main trends on theme sales for 2012 have been: responsive, e-commerce and app themes (themes that have app like functionalities).

These trends are indeed reflective of trends observed by developers in the industry. With mobile platforms taking their place as the new mainstream it is just fitting to find responsive themes becoming more of a necessity rather than a trend.

The introduction of Jigoshop and WooCommerce plugins are making people realize the viability of turning WordPress themes into robust e-commerce solutions.

Specialized app themes will remain and will continue to flourish because of the specific niches they service. These niche WordPress app themes will continue to evolve as the themes market matures.

Mojo-themes and other WordPress Boutique shops

A look at the top 10 sellers on Mojo Themes similarly shows 4/10 themes are already responsive indicating that the trend towards mobile friendly themes is indeed a phenomenon. Their top selling theme is an e-commerce theme validating the emergence of WordPress as an e-commerce solution. The rest of the themes are multi-purpose or portfolio themes which target professionals, small or medium scale businesses and corporations.

Boutique theme shops and clubs such as StudioPress, Thematic, Press75, iThemes, WooThemes, Templatic and many others continue to thrive with their own loyal following.

Outlook for 2013

Major and minor WordPress theme marketplace vendors are experiencing the trends towards responsive themes and e-commerce. The question is how will these trends influence these marketplaces as they prepare for 2013 and beyond?

It is our opinion that responsive themes will continue to be in high demand as the transition to mobile platforms is still ongoing. About 6.1B mobile subscriptions are still yet to convert to internet ready smartphone subscriptions. The recent introduction of WooCommerce and Jigoshop indicates that the market is also only in the early stages of adaptation and mainstreaming of this technology. 2013 will be a year for continued acceptance as more sites exploit the democratization of e-commerce with these two plugins. Perhaps more eCommerce plugins will be introduced into the market and WordPress users will have more options and solutions to choose from.With a big year ahead for responsive themes and e-commerce, developers now have to bid for the best products to serve these markets as well as look at what lies ahead in 2014.

As ThemeForest continues its commitment to evolve and improve its review standards on what WordPress themes are made available in the marketplace we can expect higher quality WordPress themes that will satisfy even the strictest Code gurus out there. The renewed commitment to become more involved in the WordPress community is also a welcome move that will surely benefit us all.

15 Sensational Mobile WordPress Themes

 

According to a survey I came across a few months back, the number of people who use a smartphone is larger than the number of people who use a toothbrush! This means that if your website is not mobile phone friendly then you are missing on on a lot of visitors. Some people feel that if the number of people who surf the Internet on smartphones is A and the number of people who use the Internet from their computer is B then the total number of Internet users is A + B. Wrong!

A lot of people browse the Internet on their smartphones only when they can’t access it via a computer for e.g. while travelling in a car, train or bus etc. This means that there is a big overlap between A and B. A major portion of smartphone browsers is a subset of computer browsers. So what does this has to do with your website? A lot. If you ensure that your site is easily accessible to smartphones then the number of page impressions your site gets can dramatically increase as the same people who were visiting your site via their computers can visit it even when they are…say…travelling.

Below we have collected 15 beautiful WordPress themes designed specifically for mobile phones. Some are free and some cost a nominal amount. Check them out and see which ones work best for you! NOTE: A post on great Responsive WordPress Themes for 2013 is coming soon!
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