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Examining Blog Trends: Magazine Style WordPress Themes

Posted by Kyle Eslick on December 5th, 2007 | Category and Tags

Just like pretty much everything else in the world, the blogosphere will often go through trends. These trends can be seen in a variety of ways and range anywhere from blogging setup, to blogging subject matter, or even to blogging themes.

Some would say blogging has become a copycat world, but I would say its the opposite. Bloggers are now struggling to stand out among a flood of similar blogs and form their own online identity. One of the ways that bloggers are attempting to do this is through creating or purchasing a unique theme for their site. Theme makers have sprouted up out of nowhere with “unique” themes for sale, yet they all seem to have the exact same setup and a slightly different stylesheet, failing to make the blog stand out.

The latest trend seems to be blogs shifting to more of a Content Management System (CMS), or a hub for all of their information. So, what is the best way for the average blogger to do this? This is where Magazine Style WordPress themes have stepped in to fill the void. A few of these have been around for awhile and are available to WordPress bloggers for free, but a number of premium (paid) themes have launched over the past month with the success of Brian Gardner’s Revolution theme.

Is blogging evolving? Some sites such as ProBlogger have had a lot of success with switching to a CMS, but I don’t think this is a good step for the average blogger. Do you offer video blogging? What about podcasts? Bloggers whose sites go beyond traditional blogging seem to be a good fit for Magazine style themes, while people who just write probably are not good candidates for this type of theme.

If you are interested in switching to a magazine style WordPress theme, I have compiled a visual display of the best magazine style themes over at Hack WordPress. As you can see, the list is not overwhelming yet, but I imagine the list will grow as more theme designers recognize this trend and begin creating more of these themes.

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Comment by K-IntheHouse on December 5th, 2007:

I have considered magazine style theme for another blog I am working on to break away from the normal look. But, if you don’t have lot of pictures & videos to go with your normal posts, then it might not have a positive impact anyways. But, once your site becomes more than just a blog but start offering services and such then a CMS type interface will start to make more sense.

Nice topic buddy! Will be nice to hear what others think.
Comment by Dining Tables on December 5th, 2007:

I would say that the blog world is consolidating rather than evolving. Like all start ups, the statistics show a very high percentage of failure for monetized ones. At best, a few dollars come some bloggers’s way, but, to make a successful living by blogging is now the privilege of a few top bloggers who we all know about. If you study their blogs, there is no one trend that is happening. I think that the momentum is keeping them going. Very much like the print media, each successful unit keeping its unique style, innovating within it and either growing by acquisitions or fading away. I think that to be successful, like any other business, considerable innovation has to be undertaken and this can happen by that time tested method of listening to all your stakeholders as to what they want.
Comment by Sectional Sofas on December 5th, 2007:

I think the blogging world is constantly evolving and even diversifying. That is one of the things i find so fascinating about the blogosphere today.

Are you thinking of a new blog design Kyle? Because I think you blog is fairly distinctive as it is.
Comment by CleverSage on February 12th, 2008:

Good observations that you’ve made. I believe that these type of themes offer some great versatility for integrating content (video, ads, articles, etc.) that fits outside the boundary of the blog layout built into most WordPress themes. Several of the magazine type themes that have recently come out seem to be very cool for many different types of blogs and sites.