My Take on Sponsored Themes

The blogosphere has been abuzz with talks about sponsored WordPress themes. WLTC’s Mark took a stand on the listing of sponsored themes at WLTC. While WLTC will continue listing sponsored themes, these will be clearly marked.

Today Matt Mullenweg made his stand clear about the same in a guest post at WLTC.

He also started a WordPress Idea on removing these themes listing from WordPress.org.

My Stand

As of this date I have released one theme and several plugins.

I have received a few offers to sponsor my theme, but hadn’t taken a positive decision.

Without going into much details about this, I will state one thing. You will never find any sponsored links in any of my releases.

Whatever links you will find in my projects with be to the plugin / theme page and maybe this blog. If I have to credit somebody for their work, then there may be a link to them.

However, there will be no paid links in the theme / plugin and all of them will be released under GPL, which means you are free to do as you please.

I however request you to keep the links to my site as they benefit me indirectly and to credit me for any modification you do.

How do I earn my money?

Two methods, viz. Donations and my sponsorship program.

Regular readers would be aware that I don’t have a day job now and infact I will soon be joining doing my MBA, which means additional expenses and no work for the next two years.

I therefore rely on my donors and sponsors to keep this me and my blog afloat. I haven’t been disappointed so far.

If you are interested in sending in a donation or would wish to sponsor a link on the site you can follow the pages above or contact me directly.

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Post Details

Post Date :: Friday, Apr 13th, 2007 at 7:56 am
Category :: Themes and WordPress
Tags :: sponsorship, Themes, WordPress, wordpress theme
Do More :: Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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Jayson Joseph says:
April 13th, 2007 at 11:58 am

The problem with sponsored links is that people who use the theme are not aware of it. They don’t even know that presence of such links can cause their site to be even marked as spam. In such a scenario, obviously such themes are evil!

Jayson Joseph says:
April 13th, 2007 at 12:00 pm

Many people who download themes are not even aware of the presence of sponsored links. But sometimes presence of the link can cause their site to be tagged as spam! Hence clearly such themes are evil!

Steve Wordpressguy says:
April 13th, 2007 at 3:34 pm

Well done on the no sponsorship stand. I think you’re right.
Sponsored themes are hardly a large evil in the world, but they take the shine off of what is otherwise a great project. I’ve grabbed your feed.

Runa says:
April 13th, 2007 at 3:47 pm

I think it would be better to avoid to insert links in themes, except for the ones to creators and platform (management system) main sites.

It’s obviously different with links from single blogs, for the choice in those cases is taken by the blog (or site) manager.

Vijay says:
April 13th, 2007 at 3:48 pm

It is indeed disappointing to see people trying to make a quick buck from something that is free for the world..

Ajay says:
April 13th, 2007 at 4:08 pm

@Steve, thank you Hope you enjoy what you read, must warn you though, that much of it is personal.

Ashis says:
April 13th, 2007 at 9:23 pm

Good post…Keep it Up!

Thilak says:
April 13th, 2007 at 10:35 pm

I like your no sponsored links stand. I deeply appreciate it, like Jayson said.. they are evil.

Ajay says:
April 13th, 2007 at 10:43 pm

Thanks Ashis and Thilak.

I strongly believe that I can continue to produce quality while relying on the generosity of my users.

Lancy says:
April 15th, 2007 at 7:42 pm

Do not dwell too much on the generosity of your users; money will flow at the appropriate time

Ajay says:
April 15th, 2007 at 7:47 pm

I don’t … you’re right about th emoney flowing at the right time.

Pingback from Plugin Authors Get No Love » Ajay - On the Road called Life!
April 13th, 2007 at 4:07 pm

[...] I specified my stand on sponsored themes, woke up this morning to read another aspect that we plugin authors do not receive, the link love [...]