Chris Pearson, the creator of the famous Thesis Theme, managed it to attract 30’000+ users buying his product. On Youtube.com, the hype about Thesis keeps on going.

But there are many crappy videos not worth watching, so I decided to assemble the most useful, inspiring and entertaining Thesis (1.8) videos for you to watch in a row.

What’s New With Thesis 1.8?

In this video Lisa (see her talking about Thesis in general) demonstrates the features of Thesis 1.8 – in comparison to previous versions. For beginners I consider this a must-watch.

20 Kick-Ass Thesis Customizations

It’s basically a rock music video, showing 20 custom Thesis designs. Some of the blogs within this video are not using Thesis anymore (shame on them!) but you’ll get the idea. It’s about getting some inspiration on your next blog design.

Thesis 1.8 Favicon and Header Uploaders

One of the most wanted features for new Thesis versions always was a way to include a custom header without digging into CSS or even fancy PHP hooks. Well, Chris finally implemented an easy-to-use header/favicon uploader in Thesis 1.8 – nice!

How to Install and Optimize Thesis for WordPress

If you are new to blogging, WordPress and Thesis this fine video will help you to get started. Learn how to install and optimize Thesis in just a few minutes of your time.

Customize your Thesis Header (Image, etc)

Again it’s Lisa talking. Now about the Thesis header and how to customize it. It’s a pretty long video (almost 20 minutes) but worth watching because you will definetely understand how the header works.

Introduction to Custom CSS with Thesis

Another sweet resource by Nick Reese from artofblog.com (known for regular [and outstanding] articles on thesis). If you are interested in customizing your Thesis template you should give this one a try.

Remove Sidebars from Thesis Pages

I’m sorry. This is a bit spammy but you’ll still get the idea of removing the sidebars from any Thesis page with a few clicks. Useful for any kind of landing page.

Add Custom Links to your Navbar

You’ve got a blog and a navbar. But do you know how to implement custom links? If you do not know, watch this video and you’ll understand.

Relevantly Speaking with Chris Pearson

Chris Pearson is the creator of Thesis. Listen carefully.

Thesis VS WordPress / A Comment

Watch a specky geek talk about the ongoing Thesis vs WordPress battle. In the end of the video you’ll see how the guy from besttechie.net washes his hair.

Chris Pearson Interview Jan. 2010

Since Nick interviewed Chris in January – where they talk about 2010 and Chris’ perspective on Thesis, Twitter and web publishing in general – it’s interesting to see how things evolved. Thesis (1.8) is the #1 premium WordPress theme and I doubt anything is going to change that in the near future.

In March 2010 I said the change from the nice inhouse affiliate program (managed by DIYthemes itself) to ShareASale was not a good idea. Today, more than half a year from that day, I decided to review not only my opinion but also ShareASale as my business partner.

As you can read in my old post I was not satisfied with how European affiliates were treated. I’m currently living in Germany, so I had to struggle with the new policies as well as many other European affiliates. Cliff notes: PayPal was somehow considered to be “unsecure”. That – in my personal opinion – is ridiculous, but alas, my opinion doesn’t count much.

At least I thought so when I joined ShareASale to sell Thesis as an affiliate to other people. Since my first day with ShareASale (which was grueling) a lot of things changed. A few days ago I got my first check as I had amassed enough commissions to break through the payment trigger.

In Germany checks are a very rare thing and you (if you are an US citizen) probably won’t believe how difficult it was to turn the paper into cash ;-)

The Prequel

As I mentioned in the above text PayPal was not an option anymore and I was asked to accept the new policies. I liked the payment through PayPal because it was a process which I call totally ‘hassle-free’.

I could also have sent a Fax to ShareASale stating I’m not an US citizen, blabla. For tax stuff I don’t really understand or even care about. As Fax machines are almost as rare as checks are I was pissed. Pissed enough to ignore all kind words (even by Brian Littleton himself in a comment to my rant mentioned above).

PS: I had to pay €15,- (which translates into $20,75) to make the people in my bank accept and process the check. If I had been less stubborn in the first place it would have been only $3 or $4 to receive a direct payment into my bank account…

The Review (Finally)

I’m sorry if you are already bored by my personal journey. In this part of my post I will explain why ShareASale is a very good affiliate partner and why you also should start selling Thesis today!

• ShareASale is reliable
  If you need an affiliate-related job done: The people over at ShareASale will do it.
• ShareASale is friendly
  If you’ve got any problems, you’ll get friendly answers which are orientated at solutions, not problems.
• ShareASale is fast
  Their service is really fast. An across-the-whole-earth-check (USA – Germany) took only 10 days to arrive in my mailbox, ready to be turned into cash.
• ShareASale is accurate
  Every cent of my commissions is mine to keep. They are not charging me when they send their checks. More than fair.
• ShareASale is huge
  Thousands of merchants have already joined their affiliate system – for good reasons which you are reading right now.
• ShareASale is old-school
  At first sight the administration panel is a hell of a design. But today I love it because in the end everything is quite logically arranged.
• ShareASale is effective
  While DIYthemes was already making big bucks with their old inhouse affiliate program they chose to switch to ShareASale. Those moves ain’t accidents!

Conclusion for European Affiliates

If you are currently struggling whether to join the ShareASale program or not you can be assured that selling Thesis is not as easy as buying it. But it’s absolutely worth it.

If you decide to get paid by an US Airmail check you should choose a higher payment trigger in your administration panel (Edit Account Settings) – by doing this you will not avoid paying ridiculous amounts of money to your bank but you will have more money left for you to spend.

Most bank houses in Germany charge you with 1,5% (and €15,- minimum) of the amount listed on the check, so it’s not a good idea to have yourself sent a check worth only $50,-

Alternative: You are able to get paid with a direct money transfer into your bank account. As it’s still from the USA you’ll still have to pay additional fees which are as low as $3 or $4 – which is totally O.K. in my opinion.

Hey. Whether you are one of my 20+ regular readers or new to this site: I have to announce that I disliked my old Thesis site and because of that I created a simple yet beautiful Thesis design. It took me about 20 minutes (because I grabbed some CSS from another site of mine, but…) and I enjoy the new simplicity.

I’m still impressed by the variety of designs you can create with Thesis.

What do you say?

BTW: I’m ready for a Thesis 2.0 release date, Chris!

While playing around with the brandnew (and totally awsome) Thesis 1.7 Beta I’m already pretty much excited about the next “big” version: Thesis 2.0 Final. I know that of most problems we experience and share in the DIYthemes forums is taken care of. Every now and then you can catch a tweet by Chris Pearson in which he states which huge changes & improvements Thesis 2.0 will contain…

My Personal Thesis 2.0 Theme Wishlist

Well, it’s not really a wishlist, it’s more like I’m expecting the following features to be part of any future release. If they are not going to be implemented I will of course patiently wait for the next version, but still drop a tear or two.

1. Inserting a header (image) from the options menu – Digging into the hooks is not very difficult, yet it’s annoying and just doesn’t fit Thesis’ style of making blogging easier!
2. More hooks, so I can access every single layout element – I’m currently thinking about implementing a cool feature like we can see it on Chris’ personal blog right within this post
3. Enhanced drag and drop functionality – In my post rant about Thesis versus Headway I said that Headway is somewhat ahead concerning usability (may only be true for absolute newbies)
4. Experimental (and totally optional) HTML5 features like magizine-styled columned posts – Combined with the full-width framework this should be a killer feature
5. Integrated XHTML compability mode for the multimedia hooks – Videos from Youtube and other platforms just won’t validate automatically! Chris, please help!
6. Dynamically created hooks for the “killer entries feature” – I want to access some categories in a different way though and NOT only through digging into the CSS of every single li element

As Thesis 1.6 (or 1.7 beta) is already pretty much what I expect a Premium WordPress Theme to be I’m of course very interested in the new features.

More features mean more bucks to pay

I mentioned it elsewhere: Thesis 2.0 might be more expensive than the previous versions. That is, of course, because the next big release will be stunning. Whether or not my wishlist is went through and brought to WordPress reality – I’m still expecting Thesis 2.0 to be a big winner in 2010!

What do you expect from the next Thesis Theme release?

Whenever great things are developed, there is a mastermind behind it. Chris Pearson from DIYthemes (yep, the guy who created the Thesis Theme) is being interviewed by Nick Reese – here is the original interview – and the following video is what should make your day! It made mine though. If you instead want to watch the video about Thesis 1.7 (and even the mysterious Thesis 2.0) and where Web Publishing is heading in 2010…

Let the guru speak for himself in HD: http://www.pearsonified.com/2010/01/web-publishing-2010.php

Hell, I like some competition. With another (seemingly) great Premium WordPress Theme on its Headway DIYthemes’ beloved Thesis is getting challenged. A recent discussion on ilovethesis.com made me think for a while about any possibilities regarding an exhausting WordPress Theme Shootout. At first sight Headway looks very nice!

Crazy Drag & Drop Features

headwaythemes.com states the following:

With Headway you can rearrange your layout with a simple drag and drop gesture (no, we are not kidding). You can make a newspaper layout, build a blog with a content-sidebar-sidebar layout, or anything you can imagine.

Wow, I’d like to have that inside my daily Thesis package – on the other hand I don’t care about clumsy AJAX-features that look great but suck while I’m developing something. I’ve seen drag & drop before when WordPress 2.8 arrived some months ago. I was like: “Are you kidding me?” but shortly after my first im- and expression of pure joy I became bored by that feature, because it was just slow and – I repeat – clumsy!

We’ll see how it fits into the workflow of those developers who are already using Headway…

This is freaking awesome!

Says John Haydon and he is absolutely right. But what does he mean? Headway in comparison to Thesis seems to be like PC Apple versus Apple or Iphone versus Palm Pre, etc. After paying some bucks you receive a great theme (framework) and to make your blog something special you have to customize it!

With Thesis it’s very easy to do so – with Headway it’s also very easy. Headway customization seems to be even easier. The average Joe should be able to beautify his blog within one hour or less. Both themes serve this feature…

Attention: Are you using Headway? Don’t be ashamed! I’d like to hear your opinion about your new theme in the comments area below this article!

My very premature bottom line

While writing this post I realize that it should go directly into my recycle bin and never get publicly published. Of course I won’t waste these lines and instead of another premature reaction I’ll publish it in a few minutes.

Just a few things more before I complete this verbiage:

Thesis rocks my world. You know why? Because DIYthemes has an incredible community. If I ever need help I’ll go to the forums and ask for it. Within 24 hours I’ll be happy again. It’s that easy.

I can’t see something comparable shipping with Headway. It seems so small. I even believe “it” seems avid. The success Chris Pearson and DIYthemes have seems to force people to outdo one another. That’s crap. Why not learn from each other and make WordPress usage even better, regardless of the theme used!?

Competition is great if a product lacks usability, design, community and such – but if there is a product ready-to-use-without-conflicts: Why bother re-inventing the wheel? *

With Thesis 2.0 coming I honestly cannot see ANY reason why I should switch themes. And – as an added benefit – I cannot see ANY reason for you to not use Thesis. Let other make headway, we stand our grounds with Thesis after Thesis.

Yo, Thesis users out there: I ROCK, YOU ROCK, WE ROCK! Yeah.

PS: I almost shed a tear on that ;-)

PPS: The * means: Of course it’s about the money…

Recently a rumour hit me: Prices for the upcoming Thesis 2.0 will rise. Perhaps. With WordPress 2.9 being under development for an unknown amount of time DIYthemes might be considering a price increase for Thesis 2.0

I stumbled upon the possibility of Chris Pearson (pearsonified.com) changing his business model in the near future while thinking about Thesis 1.6 actually being very cheap. – When I discovered Thesis 1.5.1 a few months ago I was just happy (read my Thesis usage report) and felt proud to have become a part of the ever-growing and totally awesome Thesis community.

Plus 50% would still be cool

Let us assume DIYthemes is going to make Thesis 2.0 about 50% more expensive. Easy calculation:

87$ will turn into 130.50$ and 164$ will then be 246$

Do you think it’s too steep? Nope, that’s exactly what I thought. Thesis 2.0 would still be “cheap” – I like the Dutch phrase “goedkoop” better :-) Those who are really into having a great WordPress theme right out of the box will still have it. What’s wrong about 50% (43.50$) compared to an approximately 500% (priceless) increased user experience?

Thesis 2.0 Affiliate Calculation

I do already own Thesis 1.6 and I’m quite happy with my developer option. I am not only allowed to use Thesis on as many blogs as I want (own) but also am I invited to “sell” Thesis.

That simply means I’m able to earn money with that thing. I love it!

I would (in a very selfish way) appreciate a price increase as my 33% will stay 33% – the outcome of course would be even more compelling:

33% of 130.50$ is exactly 43.50$ and if you are a mathematician you’ll realize that my paycheck is as high as the absolute increase itself :-)

With a developer option sold I would still grab 33% and thereby hold a whopping 82$ in my hands. So, from a “avid” point of view it would be a geat advantage to see DIYthemes push the price of Thesis 2.0

Bottom Line: Thesis rocks!

As Thesis will just rock in whatever version, any price is okay. Put aside the other “professional” themes available for WordPress. Just concentrate on what you want, what you give and what you receive.

Thesis 2.0 pricing could even increase about 100% and I would still be bound to confirm: I LOVE THESIS.

Encouraged (indirectly) to write this post by Costa @ blogigs.com

Okay, I see: You are totally broke. You feel skint and down on the rocks. Shame on you! Don’t you know how to handle your pocket money? Usually I wouldn’t bother to help you out but today I feel really generous ;-) If you read the below content very carefully and keep in mind my great ideas of how to download Thesis 1.6 for free you will be able to put your blogging to a higher level in a very small amount of time.

Attention: Of course getting something “for free” lacks natural logic but anyway: I am now going to teach you a little (well-known) secret about Thesis affiliate marketing. This is a simple 3-step-course and you are well-advised if you really READ what I write. Don’t skip things just because you are lazy and/or avid! But if you are really lazy and/or avid you can of course skip the verbiage and grab the cherry on top right away »

1. How to get from being broke to being wealthy

You could very easily get a job and earn some money legally. I sense that you might lack this kind of approach to getting things. Perhaps you are a fearless software pirate and already glimpsed at those bloody Rapidshare download possibilites which are also offering Thesis for free. I am going to crack your… no, it’s your decision.

A quick lesson about Fair Trade. Trading things is easy. Person X is offering a product which person Y wants to obtain. Next step is well-known: Person Y hands over some bucks to person X and after counting the money person X hopefully hands over the product.

As we now all know you are still broke. To change that you have to sign up for the great DIYthemes Affiliate Program which enables your option to

1. earn some money
2. and then spend some money

on the Thesis Theme 1.6.

2. Promote Thesis with your affiliate links for cash

After signing up with the DIYthemes Affiliate Program you are officially allowed to sell Thesis. You will receive 33% of every valid sale you perform with one of your affiliate links. Yeah, it’s really that easy. If you promote Thesis to four new customers (personal option) you will have about 114.84$ in your account and can then transfer it to your paypal pockets. With this amount of money you can either buy some beer or finally (did you already forget about your task?) obtain & download Thesis legally!

Hint: If you are able to sell only two (!) copies of the developer option you will have 108.24$ and are also invited to spend those bucks on the Thesis Theme (which is still available for only 87$) – no big deal, huh?

3. Oops! I lied. Only 2 steps to run through.

So, for beginners and those who did not read my advice, I repeat:

1. Sign up @ DIYthemes Affiliate Program
2. Promote Thesis and earn cash (33% of every valid sale)
3. Come back here with your $$$ or just buy Thesis right now!

PS: I just read an interesting post about a “free” version of Thesis which might be considered dangerous, at least suspicious. Read this: Free Thesis Download – Beware! (blogigs.com)

Needless to say that I LOVE THESIS ever since I installed it for the first time. But today – after 2 months of in-depth usage – I feel even better. Actually I feel like either marrying the Thesis Theme itself or – as a nice substitute – Chris Pearson, the known mastermind behind Thesis and diythemes.com! Hell, I feel good…

My first days with Thesis

Day 1 – I wasted some hours with stumbling upon Chris Pearson’s work. I was not moving away from my desk because I had to breathe. Just breathe. In and out. That took me about five hours.

Day 2 – After recharging my power cells with some sleep (and dreaming about the possibilites I purchased along with Thesis) I sat back into my chair and tried to get going. (Still trembling)

Day 3 – I managed to customize some things and was still wasted by the fact that I had been wishing & praying for something like this precious WordPress Theme since I heard about blogs.

Day 4 – I fell in love with Thesis and obtained this very domain. Feeling so sure about great ideas flowing and having the tools to maintain them, I was just plain happy.

Day 5-10 – Setting up a new blog with Thesis is as easy as flushing the toilet; you will see results at a glance. Tweak a little here and screw a bit there. Everytime I screw too badly I just upload a backup of my custom.css and keep tweaking. It’s fun. I was delighted.

Day 11-20 – I surfed the web to gather more information about customizing and making my blog(s) look great and special. As you can see it worked out just perfectly. Found the great collection of Thesis hacks & customizations on ilovethesis.com yet?

Day 21-30 – My first month with THE WordPress Theme has been the best month I ever had while developing blogs. I was ready to perform some hilarious magic on my other blogs as well.

Hint: The added benefit of putting Thesis on every domain that I want to begin to sparkle came along with my developer option which I did not hesitate to purchase. Neither should you – go for gold and » Get Thesis!

Day 31-45 – Another two wonderful weeks spent with customizing, tweaking, hacking and uploading great websites. Due to Chris Pearson my overall workflow has increased in efficiency about 200% – I’m not kidding at all!

Day 45-today – As I grew a professional blogger some time ago I of course wanted to make the most of now (and tomorrow). Sometimes – that seems very, very far away now! – I wasn’t far from quitting my job as a webdeveloper because I felt so crippled with most of the “free” themes available.

I knew that there would come a day sooner or later that had to be my personal mark of change. So, I asked myself, which theme shall I purchase? Which one is good enough to fit my needs?

Then I came along at Chris Pearson’s personal blog (pearsonified.com) and clicked through some of his posts. I had seen his advertising before but I didn’t want to throw good money after bad by receiving complete garbage in the end. Who knows whether he is getting a precious gift or pure waste after clicking the Paypal button?! I was unsure, so I remained unhappy and still crippled.

After a few days of asking myself about the amount of time I was willingly flushing in the toilet I just got my copy of the Thesis Theme (Developer Option) and it felt right. Do you know that feeling? When you do just anything and it feels so – HELL, YEAH! – right? I knew it from well-timed decisions before so I also knew that something had changed the very moment I transferred my money digitally. No hiccups, plain & easy process. Installed my copy. No big deal after all. I LOVE THESIS

When it comes to true professional (you might even say “premium”) WordPress Themes you have two options at hand: It’s either gonna be the widespread Revolution Theme or the Thesis Theme. I will now not put any weight on comparing these gems because you should already know by now that I prefer option B – I do not only prefer Thesis, I LOVE THESIS.

Which WordPress Theme do you prefer?

Well, if we can believe Google’s nice and fluffy Insights for Search you are not so sure about your next professional theme. At least that was the case until March/April of this year – 2009 it is! – and we can clearly see how things change on the web. Look at the following picture. I made a screenshot of my little research in which I compared both the Revolution Theme and the Thesis Theme. My keywords were simple yet powerful and named “thesis theme” and “revolution theme”.

It seems the Pros are switching positions

Yes, indeed. Something happened and Chris Pearson can be very proud of whatever he did. It might be the affiliate program which is advertised like hell today. I think it might also be the big version change of Thesis when it finally came to 1.5 (see the original blog post). The news is dated April, 29th. If you compare this date with the sudden rise of search volume concerning “thesis theme” it’s hard to believe something else. And yes, the 1.5er made things even better. So logic is bound to spice up the WordPress Theme Shootout at that time.

I’m currently using Thesis 1.5 and pretty happy with it. Of course I’m going to upgrade as soon as 1.6 is released publicly. (I do like BETA statuses but I prefer FINAL in the end.)

Thesis 1.5.1 is a sure winner

Another spike in the graph above could be related to the next small step in version number counting. After 1.5.1 being announced and published to the fellow Thesis lovers (and those who love WordPress in general) the Thesis Theme (and the search volume for “thesis theme”) were going uphill again. Nice to see that.

Ok, now that we realized that Thesis has become the one and only option let us take a close look at the following number. I sometimes just sit there and cannot believe how popular WordPress is. Wow!

Some math doesn’t harm my Thesis much

While I am typing this post, the download count (just for WordPress v2.8) increases almost every second or two and the picture is of course outdated right now. I just wanted you to see how big all this blog thing is! Now back to the topic: Thesis Theme versus Revolution Theme.

I think that the Revolution Theme has been downloaded more often – until Thesis went 1.5.x. Today I am sure that Chris Pearson earns his fair share from those millions of bloggers out there. You might be one of them, already working on your blog with some sloppy theme you got for free – or thinking about a blog to share your thoughts with us.

Which type you belong to is not important. What is important anyway? If your were expecting some great graphics, stats and blood I’m sorry to disappoint you. I just wanted to do some serious ranting and so I did. Your interest in the Thesis Theme has now increased and I’m sure you want to visit diythemes.com and watch it in action!