However, there are also some nice paid themes in the $30-50 price bracket which have some premium functionality but are also more affordable than the better known themes which cost over $50. It would still be difficult to justify buying a cheaper paid theme when there are plenty of great free themes out there which might match their quality.

And a year from now? I’m hoping that the community will have adjusted to the premium theme market. The most well-known premium theme creators will still be leading the market, though a few new faces will try to get in on the action. Theme designers will continue to push the limits of WordPress, until it will be seen as retro to use WordPress for a simple blog!

It’s a great question. I was actually at ETech08 this week in San Diego and had a long discussion over some sushi with Alex Iskold and Fraser Kelton of AdaptiveBlue about this. We all generally agreed that this is more likely just the beginning of the boom, rather than a plateau. Matt Mullenweg just announced a few days ago on his blog that Wordpress is backing Buddy press and hinted that WordPress is heading in a more “social” direction (http://ma.tt/2008/03/backing-buddypress/). We spoke to some of the developers at Typepad this week as well who told us that Typepad has really been putting a lot of effort into releasing their own “custom themes” in order to keep up with WordPress’s staggering growth – the big guys are obviously recognizing the trend toward customized, highly-functional themes. I think what you’ll see in the coming year – and a lot of guys agree about this in the widget-building world – that there’s going to be a shift in how people use their blogs and that customization and personalization is key. You’re going to start seeing a lot more themes that look more like facebook pages than straight blogs (i.e. lots more space for widget integration, twitter-type apps, video and “life-streaming” widgets. Designers like Brian Gardner, and especially Adii are kicking ass by extending what wordpress can do and making WP look and feel more like a CMS. Also, you’re right to point out that coding simple UI’s into the back end is going to continue to add value and take WP to the next level. I think you’ll see that being a key competitive advantage moving forward.

In any case – you want to chat more about this, shoot me an email.

Good post.