Matt Mullenweg has come out against advertiser supported themes for WordPress here.

As much as I’ll always have time for Matt, I don’t agree with him on this.

For starters, the arguments he puts forward in terms of WordPress is free therefore themes should be free of advertiser links is spurious at best. Yes, WordPress is free, but a template that runs on WordPress is a unique piece of code/ design that the author/ coder creates, that legally can be subject to copyright therefore legally can be advertiser supported. If we were to accept the opposite, that themes must be open sourced/ free because they run off WordPress, there isn’t a blog running WordPress out there that couldn’t be ripped or stolen..of course that isn’t the case.

On the logic of it all, Mullenweg argues that there was a strong users community creating themes prior to advertiser supported themes, and there will be tomorrow if its banned. True, but here’s the thing: advertiser supported themes helped take WordPress to the next level. I couldn’t even try and guess how many themes are now available for WordPress, tens of thousands, even more? Every single one of those themes made WordPress that much more appealing to everyone. Variety is the spice of life, choice is the driving force behind WordPress’ resounding success in the DIY blogging game.

And on morals: what’s wrong with someone getting paid for their work, particularly if we (as a community) all benefit from it? I hope Matt’s not going down the hippie everything should be free for the love of it route, if that’s the case perhaps Akismet should be 100% free for all users, and WordPress.com shouldn’t be charging for anything? Indeed, Automattic should be a not-for-profit company that pays no wages 🙂 Advertiser supported WP templates have helped drive choice and variety in a way that everyone wins: the advertisers win, they get their link out there, designers win, they get paid, we (the community) win because we get extra choices in terms of free templates. If Google has a problem with those links, that’s for Google to deal with, not WordPress/ Automattic.

Now having said that, there is some implication that advertiser supported templates are doing more than just a plain ol’ text link at the bottom. If this is the case then I don’t support the other types: most people will happily accept a link to an advertiser in a theme, they won’t accept cloaked links, banners, any other types of advertising that is untowards or intrusive, and indeed I’d be tempted to support a ban on themes that do this sort of thing, but one text link as a swap for a free theme is more than a fair enough trade for me…end of the day, let the market decide, if people don’t like/ want this, they won’t download and install these templates, end of story.

It will be interesting to see how the WP community reacts to this. I’d remind Mullenweg that the freedom the community has had, has all in all been good for WordPress, and that medling in things such as advertiser supported themes runs the risk of upsetting people and tipping the otherwise well working balance. Let history be the guide of what happens when well meaning people interfere in the community only to find people taking their time and effort elsewhere (hint: SA).

Note: I do not own any advertiser supported themes, not do I use any BTW, so there’s no conflict of interest. Tinkering and creating themes though can be fun 🙂

Steve Rubel calls it right on Google: “All your Ads belong to us“.

Its been said before, but I’ll say it again: when will Governments start intervening in Google’s growth? How much of the online world will Google dominate before Government says enough is enough, this is anti-competitive, monopoly behaviour? Sure, the argument against is that you can’t regulate people’s behaviour, there is alternatives to Google in all the markets in which they compete/ dominate/ control, but every day, every month, every year Google gets bigger and bigger, more and more dominant and in control: Google + DoubleClick equals a massive share of the online advertising market. Search may not be all Google in the US, but Google has in excess of 80% market share in other countries, including Australia. Is Google close to becoming the Standard Oil or the AT&T of our times? remember that they also own a big chunk of internet backbone in the US as well. Time will tell I guess, but I’ll predict that if Governments aren’t taking a look at Google now, they soon will be.

$3.1bn: Google’s purchase price for Doubleclick. Struth. Web 1.0 lives again, literally, DoubleClick is a Web 1.0 company, dating from the early days of the internet. Is this a smart move for Google? if they apply the Adwords model to Doubleclick CPM banner advertising is going to get a whole lot more sexy very soon, and firms such as ValueClick and RightMedia should be looking out, big time.

Spot question: will this deal mark the top of the Web 2.0 boom/ bubble?

CBS announces 10 content distribution partners: BBC.

Will the content be geoblocked? I can’t currently view video content (show episodes, not previews) on the CBS website without spoofing my IP address or using a Proxy; will services such as Joost also block content to non-US viewers? I can only hope they don’t. And of course if they don’t, the death of network delayed TV in Australia is sure to follow, after all, who’s going to wait 6-9 months to watch the latest hit series from the US when you can stream it from the web legally, as opposed to what many do now anyway, download the content from bittorrent. Here’s hoping.

Is there anything David Krug won’t sell?

Email in my inbox this morning (my time, +8GMT) letting me know that Splashpress Media has acquired 901am. Minin Rivera, ex-Editor of The Blogging Times has taken the Editor position.

Congrats to all involved.

I’m starting to become convinced that I must be psychic: I was only looking at domain names yesterday for a Web 2.0 focused site. Having said that I’ve made no decision as to whether I will continue there, particularly given my history with the new owners, and the tone they’ve taken with me so far on the acquisition (not bad, just formal).

Spot Question though: is there anything Splashpress hasn’t bought? 🙂

Un-f*cking-believable.

And yet on the other hand, not surprising. Scoble does a sponsored post, after flipping from being one of the biggest critics against paid posting, to being the head speaker at the Pay Per Post postie-con.

Again, as I’ve said previously, I’m not dead against PPP as many others are, it’s not my thing personally, but I don’t begrudge others doing it. Of course Scoble will say that he wasn’t put up to it, and he probably wasn’t, after all, you can’t measure I’ll scratch your back, you’ll scratch mine tangibly, but in my books, there’s not that much difference between Scobles Segate post, and PPP, indeed, the line is really only a personal definition by an “A-Lister” after all. One thing I will say though, having seen some of the PPP posts around the place, Scobles is beyond sickly sweet in comparison, indeed ethically I’d think PPP were on the better side of this one in terms of product endorsement. What will be interesting to see is whether I’m alone in saying that, after all, Scoble is like a sacred fish, no one wants to bite.