Brian Clark, co-founder of DIY themes recently published a post on his blog. Post’s title read – “what’s the big deal about the thesis theme for WordPress anyway?” And then he gave the example of all the bloggers that are using this ever so famous theme. He has all the reason to brag about the fact that Matt Cutts, Darren, Danny Sullivan, Jermiah Andrick and around 5000 bloggers are using that one single theme. Without a doubt, its one of the most popular premium themes after the Revolution theme by Brian Gardner.
However, as WordPress theme designer I understand that there are few things that are just over hyped with Thesis theme and then there are two famous names associated with it. Thesis theme is a very good theme, however is it good enough to be called a framework?
I recently spoke to one of my friend (I will not mention the name here), who recently purchased Thesis theme and was going bonkers over all of its positives and that how many options it gave to him. Then I showed the options page of Atahualpa theme to him and the very next moment he felt cheated.
Then I told him that what exactly is the big deal about the thesis theme. I told him that he bought and paid for a theme which is beautifully designed, has clean code, has nice typography and has a brand value attached to it (brand value of Chris Pearson and Brian Clark). I told him that Thesis theme is worth every penny because of the hard work that has gone in building and marketing it, so he shouldn’t feel cheated and should enjoy the theme.
Honestly Brian! You are the big deal about thesis theme. There are themes that are equally good or are better than thesis theme, however what they lack is the marketing and brand value provided by you!
I Googled myself here because I’m looking for themes better than Thesis.
Which ones do you think are better but don’t have the branding or the marketing behind them?
@gib – thanks for dropping by and taking your time to leave the comment. There are many themes that can easily compete with Thesis theme -
I’ve already mentioned about Atahualpa theme and Raja mentioned about ISOTherm theme http://jaypeeonline.net/wordpress-themes/wp-theme-review-isotherm-news-magazine/
Apart from that, if we are talking about framework then various themes by http://www.plaintxt.org/ are pretty awesome and they focus on typography and if you know how to play around with the themes, you can surely come up with good results.
I’ve worked online for over 12 years and currently have over 14 blogs. A few use Brian Gardner themes (Streamline and Lifestyle), but the rest run on Thesis. As someone who has used more themes than most people, I can honestly say that Thesis is that good.
Yes, marketing and branding are important – but not if the product isn’t worth it. I recently tried the KFC Grilled Chicken and will not try it again. It didn’t live up to the razzmatazz. But, hype? Are you kidding me? Oprah made it a household name!
Thesis didn’t get famous because of the marketing or even Brian Clark. Thesis earned it’s fame by being an seo powerhouse. After all, the mastermind behind Thesis, Chris Pearson, designed Brian Clark’s blog – so he actually has a hand in his success – not just the other way around.
Just thought I’d give my two cents. Peace.
I also bought Thesis and although I was disappointed I didn’t feel cheated. It wasn’t as out of the box as they made it out to be, and the fact that all those famous bloggers use it doesn’t make it work any better. The fact is I was smart enough not to pay for the developers license until I took it for a spin. Rather than waste it I use it for my Load of BS blog and immediately started looking for a more ‘plug and play’ theme. I found one which I liked so much I did buy the developers license and I now use it for my other 7 blogs.
@joi – As far as the SEO power house factor is concerned – I’m sure that all those features can be easily countered with the use of the wonderful seo plugins like HeadSpace, all in one seo pack or platinum seo pack. I agree that thesis is a good theme rather I like it a lot because of all the options and beautiful typography, however it definitely doesn’t deserve the hype that it gets. In your case you wouldn’t try KFC’s grilled chicken because it isn’t good and its only hyped. In this case, I wouldn’t suggest thesis theme to anyone for the hype but for the good feature that it has…however, there are themes that deserve more exposure in the market but aren’t getting because they aren’t promoted by bloggers like Brian, Darren and other popular bloggers. I’m not against thesis, but I’m against the over-hype that it’s getting.
@Sire – Exactly that’s the point I was making! No one will feel cheated after buying thesis theme, however it’s that little disappointment that comes after seeing all the hype. I completely understand that why you got disappointed because you didn’t get the features that you expected after looking at all the hype and buzz that is around the blogosphere about the thesis theme.. isn’t that true? BTW, which theme are you talking about – would love to know about it :)
OK, maybe that last comment went in to spam. Just in case it’s lost I was just suggesting that you install a subscribe to comment plugin so people could be notified when a reply was made. That and to tell you the theme I was talking about was FlexSqueeze.
@Sire – Installed the subscribe to comments plugin. Checking FlexSqueeze, it surely looks interesting.
I Completely Agree with you Mayank, Its all about an excellent exposure that thesis is getting with some famous bloggers. I just tried the free Atahualpa theme, and i am pretty much surprised to see that it can be customized to in awesomely large number of ways!
By now i am pretty happy with it.
Many big names recommend it for the affiliate revenue. If it wasn’t for the affiliate revenue it wouldn’t have been so popular.
There are lot of free theme better than thesis out there, but they don’t get enough attention as there is no affiliate money in free themes.