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Good move or bad move - thoughts?

by Stu_M10
6 replies
Hey Gang,

I came across an article that kind of surprised me this morning...

Revolution Themes is Going Open Source!

Basically the guy who created the Revolution Themes has decided to
make all his future WordPress themes free. I know has done extremely well selling these over the last couple of years and has several thousand customers.

So, it's a surprising move since he was one of the pioneers of the "premium themes" market and they were selling quite well.

Do you think this is a good move or a bad one?

I'm interested to know what you guys think.

Cheers.

Stu
#bad #good #move #revolution #themes #thoughts #wordpress
  • Profile picture of the author humantorpedo
    I think that the premium themes market isn't going to go away as some people think. OK, go ahead and make free themes, but somebody is always going to be willing to pay for themes that are not free. It's all in how much you want it.

    As far as what Brian is doing, I hope he knows what he is doing. He's basically changing his approach to something that he has not tried. But maybe he has been having a dry spell and decided that people aren't interested in paying for Revolution anymore.

    Anyway, it will be interesting to see how it plays out.
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  • Profile picture of the author Ron Killian
    Maybe because of all the free revolution type themes? I see more all the time. Maybe he has a plan?
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    • Profile picture of the author humantorpedo
      Now that I think about it and see what he's really doing, the business model has not changed at all All he's done is expand the free "net" to capture potential customers. They are still selling themes, there will be themes that you can only pay for. Sounds like Revolution

      It's very smart to expand the net. With the buzz generated by his move, there will be a big net. And lots of downloaders of the free themes. And so loads of potential customers.

      Nice ...
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  • Profile picture of the author Stu_M10
    I agree with Tim on this in that I think there will always be a market for people who want high end themes.

    However, I think the more interesting question is the business model behind how these will be sold.

    I wrote about this on my blog today:
    Makes You Think - The Business Of Blogging Marketing Ideas and Insights

    The big question is...

    Is it a smarter business model to "give away the premium theme and charge for support" vs. "charge for the theme and give free support"?

    Certainly Brian's move indicates charging for support maybe the better idea. And with Brian being a pioneer in the "premium themes" market, I'm sure you'll see other people follow his lead.

    Either way it's certainly an interesting move and I'll be keeping a close eye out for how this effects the rest of us who sell products for WordPress users.
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  • Profile picture of the author nebuer
    I think this is definately a bad move. Someone giving something for free is never going to make as much as someone selling something straight up.
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  • Profile picture of the author Chris Lockwood
    People need support for blog themes?
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