The Sustainability of Theme Development on Micro.blog
Originally, Tiny Theme for Micro.blog was simply a personal project for my blog. After I went live with it, I began to receive requests to make it available to others. I had no objections to people using my work in this way, so I did the necessary work to make it as useful to others as it was to me.
From day one, the response was incredibly positive. It received what I consider a high adoption rate and more and more micro.blog users installed it as their theme of choice. Support and tutorial requests started to roll in, but nothing I couldn’t handle at the time. Honestly, I enjoyed helping others accomplish their goals for their sites.
Eventually, I released another theme, Sumo, for the platform. Again, it has received positive reviews and been used by more people than I could’ve imagined. What started as a personal project morphed into an unexpected design customization hobby. While I do enjoy the work, I noticed more and more of my time was being devoted to designing and developing freely available blog themes.
At a certain point in the process, I knew I’d have to figure out a way to monetize it. This isn’t ideal, but when you’re spending hours and hours on a project, at some point it has to make financial sense. There are expenses that I incur relating to hardware, software, hosting, and of course time. I needed to at least cover some of those costs. This lead me to introducing a simple Buy Me a Coffee monetization structure. Basically, you get everything for free and if you can afford it, buy me a cup a coffee1 from time to time.
The generosity of others has always amazed me. In this case, there have been a few who have been more than willing to help offset expenses. It’s hardly profitable, but it has enabled me to at least cover a few costs over the last year. The total amount of donations I have received over that time is $532.73.
Here is the monthly (13 months) breakdown:
As you can see, things fluctuate greatly. The peaks in the chart are always connected to helping an individual user with a larger customization issue. The minimal values are typically propped up by a few automatically recurring donations. These donations have covered the cost of my preferred coding software, design software, Micro.blog hosting, and a few cups of coffee. That’s been fantastic.
The uncovered aspect is, unfortunately, time. To be clear, this isn’t the fault of users or of the Micro.blog platform. It’s simply a byproduct of a hobby based design/development project. There aren’t many people making simple blog themes that provide large weekly cash drops. It’s the nature of the beast.
With Micro.blog being a few years old at this point, I would still consider it in its infancy. Manton and team have done an incredible job developing a platform with many strengths and possibilities, and I know they have ambitious plans for the future.
However, as someone who is simply designing a theme for the platform, I must find a way to prioritize my time and resources in a way that makes sense for me. That doesn’t mean Tiny Theme or Sumo Theme are going away. Not by any means. But it does mean, at least for a season of life, I have to redirect some of my time to more pressing matters.
First and foremost, that’s the well-being of my family. This year, our family received some very tough medical related news involving two individuals. This isn’t the place to get into specifics. But I will say that both of those individuals, after months of treatment, are rebounding beautifully and the future looks bright.
As for Micro.blog, I’m still a supporter. As for Tiny and Sumo Theme, I’ll still be maintaining and updating them. When it comes to support, I’ll still attempt to address any issues and provide tutorials when possible. You can feel confident that the themes will continue to exist and be supported. Timelines may look different. I once released support for a feature less than 5 minutes after Micro.blog announced it. I don’t know if that will happen again, but…never say never.
To wrap this whole thing up, I’d like to offer a few suggestions for the Micro.blog team to support and entice further theme/plugin development on the platform:
- Introduce a “verified” (or similar) category for plugins. If a theme (or other plugin) passes certain criteria, let it be viewed under a heading that indicates its quality.
- Provide discounts to proven developers on the higher paid plans. For example, a developer may not need to use a certain feature (like family plans) for their personal account. But to provide support and testing for others, it would be nice to have access to them.
- Add a link to each developer on individual plugin listings. Or perhaps a “follow” button.
- Communicate upcoming changes/features, when possible, to proven designers/developers beforehand.
- Find a way to further incentivize quality development. We’re a simple folk. I know a guy who developed an entire app for a company just for a chance to win a box of swag. T-shirts and notebooks and stickers and mugs and and and…are powerful stuff these days.
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Yes, it says coffee multiple times. And yes, that’s the name of the company I use to process donations. And yes, most people think coffee is a live saving substance. However, I don’t drink coffee. I’ve tried so many times. From the entire Starbucks menu to every artisan thing imaginable to adding overwhelming amounts of sugar/milk/honey/syrup, it just doesn’t work for me. I’ve even tried the add salt trick to help with the bitterness. Coffee just isn’t for me. My drink of choice is a nice cold Dr. Pepper. As a Texas-born (Louisiana native) man, it make sense. Alas, there is no service called Buy Me a Dr Pepper. Yet. ↩︎