WordPress to Get a Theme Marketplace

Have you ever switching to using a new WordPress theme for your blog and then suddenly notice it all over the blogosphere?   It can often be tough to find a quality free theme that isn’t already being heavily used by other WordPress bloggers.  

As a result, many serious bloggers make the decision to instead go the route of purchasing a premium theme.   These are usually some of the best quality themes and you won’t find to many of them scattered around the blogosphere due to the cost.   Some examples of affordable premium themes include the Revolution Theme by Brian Gardner or some of the exclusive themes by Unique Blog Designs.

Now it looks like WordPress will make it a little easier for serious bloggers to find a quality theme.   Once purchased, it looks like half of the sales price goes to the theme author, while the other half goes to Automattic to help maintain the site. 

Its a little early and we don’t have enough information yet to comfortably form an opinion on this, but it is something that if done right, could be useful.   It will be interesting to see how many theme authors are willing to give up 50% of their sale price for a little extra exposure, and also to see if this is something available to WordPress.org users, rather than just being for WordPress.com users.