Checking out the WPTavern Twitter stream early this morning, I noticed this tweet from Matt: This could be interesting for WP themes: http://wpgorilla.org/ They should add finished product to theme directory. Taking a look into the Gorilla Project, looks like they will be producing open-source ‘Premium‘ WordPress themes.
The Gorilla Project is an opensource project created by Jeremie and Chris to overcome common issues encountered by a single Wordpress theme designer.
I’ve never heard of Chris before but Jeremie should be a somewhat familiar name to most of you since he is the creator of the slick looking OneRoom WordPress theme. I’m intrigued by why these two developers are going down this road essentially doing the same thing every other theme author is doing but for a price.
I mean, everything on paper regarding this project looks great from an end users perspective, I just can’t believe there is no mention of revenue or money. I would be very, very surprised if this really was a project centered around benefiting the WordPress community as a whole, only because I’ve never seen something like this. Matt even suggested that once they have a finished product available, they should put it on the Theme Repository. If OneRoom and Jeremie’s latest project PigNews is the type of design work we can expect to come out of this project to be freely accessible to anyone in the WordPress community, that will be a huge plus not only for the repository, but for the community as a whole.
I’m going to try and get a hold of one or both of these guys to figure out what the ultimate motive is behind the project either in an interview on WPWeekly or a text based interview.
They are currently looking to build their team so if you’re interested and are a theme designer, a plugin developer, a PHP Ninja or only a graphic designer email them at joinus {a-t} wpgorilla {d-o-t} org. they also ask that you please attach a link to your portfolio if you have one.
I read this comment by Jeremie where he says, “but if this project grow too fast or too big for us to maintain, we might have no choice but to offer paid support.”
So I guess paid support may be a possibility in the distant future? Probably something like Automattic’s Support Network, where people could use the free support forums (like on wordpress.org) but could get “enterprise level” support straight from the source.
I think the main goal at this point is just to get the project going with new theme releases, and a community built up.
Leland’s last blog post..WP Gorilla – More Free Premium Themes?
I’ve mentioned this before on other sites, but they seriously need to rethink their name.
There is already an established premium themes company using “Gorilla” in their name… Gorilla Themes.
If they had researched their name when coming up with a domain, a quick search on Google for “gorilla wordpress” or “gorilla themes” would have returned them as the first result. They certainly didn’t do their research.
I don’t find it very kosher to use a name that can cause brand confusion with someone in the same space… especially when you are giving something away for free and the other person has a pay product. It causes confusion AND can impact each others SEO due to both using Gorilla in the name.
@Leland – Well, that would make more sense to me as I can’t see theme developers doing great work just for the benefit of the community. It would be nice in an ideal world, but we don’t live in one of those lol.
@Carl Hancock – To be honest, when I saw Matts Tweet, I thought he was talking about that other Gorilla Themes place which is why I was intrigued at first. Turns out it was a completely different project. Like you, I think if they get big enough, their could be some feathers ruffled between the two forcing a name change.
I’ll pass on to Jeremie and Chris about this (I’m working on the backend with Chris).
Looking forward to the release of PigNews. The PigNews preview looks great and if OneRoom is an indicator of what’s to come from WPGorilla, it should be awesome.
By the way, looks like they will be changing their domain name along with the entire name of the project.
I have to agree with the approach. We are taking a similar approach and feel it is the best way to “add value” and still release killer “free premium” themes. You build the community around the great themes and then add value for those that want it.
[...] though Matt Mullenweg told us not to on our Google groups. The new name was proposed by Jeffro from Wordpress Tavern with the following definition: Synergy: The enhanced result of two or more people, groups or [...]