Ian Stewart who is now a theme wrangler for Automattic started a tradition a few years ago. Each year, he would round up a collection of thoughts and predictions from notable people within the WordPress community to discuss what the future of themes were for that year. I’ve had the privilege to participate in the discussion for 2008 as well as 2009. Unfortunately, the tradition was broken in 2010 but in 2011, Ryan Imel of WPCandy.com has taken over the reigns.
This year, my prediction was very simple. Custom Taxonomies, Custom Post Types, and Post Formats. While developers will go crazy with the first two, I expect the most exciting development for this year to center around Post Formats along with their look and feel for themes. Definitely give the post a read as Ryan manage to get a handful of people I’ve never heard of to provide their two cents on themes for 2011.
I think that with the growth of WordPress use for full-site use (as opposed to just using it for a blog), custom themes are gradually becoming more and more popular.
The same can be said to all the plugins and widgets which are flooding the market.
Thanks for the great share.
I am still waiting for a good theme that actually demonstrates clearly the difference/possibilities between/of Custom Taxonomies, Custom Post Types and Post Formats!
Cheers, Harry