Widescreen is a flexible theme for WordPress that features two optional homepage designs, a fullscreen slideshow, multiple interior page and post templates and a built-in video player. The new theme options panel makes customization dead simple, providing users with easy color selection and optional homepage design layouts. However, Widescreen requires PHP5 and is only available to paid subscribers.

Pricing: $49+
Requirements: -
Source: Grab Your Copy Now!

WordPress has become the most widely used blogging platform in the world, estimated to be used on a quarter of a billion websites online today. WordPress works as a blog, but also as a straightforward content management system, ready to use with search-engine-friendly URLs and fully valid HTML and CSS.

With so many sites using WordPress and only about 1,200 themes listed on WordPress.org, there are inevitably lots of sites looking exactly the same. You and your clients need to stand out, or end up being branded as “just another WordPress blog.”

In  the article: Create Your Own WordPress Theme from an HTML Template, Matthew Higgins will show you how to take an existing HTML and CSS site template and convert it into a theme for WordPress. Of course, WordPress theming is much too vast a topic to cover entirely in a single article, so he will provide you with some resources at the end to further your learning. This article serves as a good introduction and give you a solid foundation to start learning about creating your own WordPress themes.

Source: Create Your Own WordPress Theme from an HTML Template

Smooth is a widget-ready theme that is dedicated to writers. Its simplicity, light grey background and large fonts put the content ahead. Nothing useless, just fine typography and a touch of colors. Others translations have been released by users but aren’t included in the theme archive. You can download them directly on the page.

Pricing: FREE
Requirements: -
Source: http://www.my-tapestry.com/smooth/

Since 2003, WordPress has been demonstrating the power of community development as it becomes the dominant open source Web site platform on the Internet. It’s popularity has been propelled not only by its price (free), but by its quality. From an austere beginning, the platform has become one of the most full-featured, flexible platforms available on the Web today, but it continues to evolve. As WordPress nears its next major revision, many people are wondering where WordPress is headed. Here are five ways the WordPress may evolve in the future, many of which can be observed in current trends.

1. Beyond Blogging

Users around the globe are waking up to the fact that WordPress is much more than a blogging platform: it is a Web content management system (CMS) with the power to support Web presence in a variety of formats. Already, many plugins exist that help adapt WordPress into a CMS with a powerful backend. In the future, look for more CMS features to be native to WordPress, and the blogger features moderated to fit with the more general purpose. Already, WordPress is considered to be second only to Drupal in the market for open source CMS.

2. Premium Plugins, Themes and Enhancements

Casual bloggers probably won’t get very excited about premium WordPress items, but enthusiasts and professionals probably will. Premium features will serve two primary purposes: first, they will spur more innovation, something that is needed to keep WordPress from becoming stale. Secondly (more…)

The FBLikeButton Plugin for WordPress allows you to configure and display the FaceBook Like Button before and/or after each post and/or page, and whether or not you want the button to appear on your homepage.

The FaceBook Like Button enables users to make connections to your pages and share content back to their friends on Facebook with one click. Since the content is hosted by Facebook, the button can display personalized content whether or not the user has logged into your site. For logged-in Facebook users, the button is personalized to highlight friends who have also liked the page.

Pricing: FREE
Requirements: -
Source: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/fblikebutton/

Great web publishing platforms like WordPress have made it easy for just about anyone to publish information and have it seen by the world, but as Google starts favoring sites that have the resources and knowledge to optimize page load time, some publishers’ messages may not have the reach they once did.

Exacerbating this problem is that information on website optimization is somewhat complicated and assumes a considerable amount of technical knowledge. David Kadavy is very kind to share his experience with improving the page load time of his WordPress site on WordPress Optimization: How I Reduced Page Load Time by 75%.

Source: WordPress Optimization: How I Reduced Page Load Time by 75%

Stunning Press is a free WordPress theme with options page and supports the post thumbnails. Suitable for any niche. It supports Featured Video, Gravatar on Comments and Widgets Ready. It has been tested and compatible with all major browsers: IE, FF, Safari.

Pricing: FREE
Requirements: -
Source: http://newwpthemes.com/wordpress-theme/stunning-press/

Storytlr is an open source lifestreaming and micro blogging platform. You can use it for a single user or it can act as a host for many people all from the same installation. You can import from 18 popular sources, easily post your own updates, pick from a range of styles and create compelling stories from your content.

Pricing: FREE
Source: http://storytlr.org/

Cumulus is the perfect portfolio theme. It’s 100% free and is released under the GPL license. It come with a cool, built-in, drop down menu. Supports up to 4 levels. They Can be easily adjusted. It support for the following plugins: Twitter Tools, WP-PageNavi, and Contact Form 7. You can easily edit footer text via theme options. You can also easily add your Google Analytics code.

Pricing: FREE
Requirements: -
Source: http://empirethemes.com/cumulus-a-portfolio-theme/

Basic Maths is a rock-solid, standards-compliant and microformats-friendly WordPress theme. Every template is based on a rational, methodical typographic grid for impeccable layout guidance. PLUS, a shortcut (SHIFT + ALT + G) magically displays the column structure on a transparent layer.

Change up Basic Maths’ minimalist color scheme in a matter of seconds: a theme option allows you to specify and apply your own colors with a single click. Widgets abound, and they’re all smartly and seamlessly formatted. Includes three custom widgets: Archives, Recent Posts, and Site Info, hand-crafted for Basic Maths. Users get quick access to your archives via tags or categories, available on every page of Basic Maths. An intuitive, fluidly organized archives page serves as a comprehensive table of contents to your entire site.

Pricing: $45
Requirements: -
Source: http://basicmaths.subtraction.com/