Seasons Greetings,

Usually I don’t give status posts on site projects, however, the FrontPage has been dormant for so long now that it seems necessary. Firstly, I’d like to apologize to our userbase for the sparse activity on the FrontPage. We originally thought that adding the “Quick Picks” section would help bring a breathe of life to the FrontPage, but we have realized that in order to make this section of MacThemes as viable and vibrant as it’s “communal” counterpart (see: The Forums) that a greater amount of end-user integration is desperately needed. We’ve been busily toiling away at an update that we hope will bring the FrontPage back to life, creating a steady flow of traffic and more areas for end-user interactions to take place. We won’t be committing to any time-tables, however, we hope this post amplifies some key points:

1. We aren’t dead… Yet - While death is an inevitable epilogue to life, MacThemes isn’t going to “flat-line” anytime soon.In fact, we have seen tremendous growth in both our monthly traffic as well as in our forum user-base, the latter of which is close to breaking 30,000 members!

2. Registration WILL reopen - Though ample reason has been given regarding our decision to temporarily close forum registration, I just wanted to reiterate that this situation will not be permanent. While we’ve enjoyed tremendous growth in the past year, we have always strived to maintain a healthy and enjoyable community environment for both GUI enthusiasts and designers alike. As a result, we felt it would be best to temporarily halt registration as we delineate the most appropriate way to manage such a large community (Not too long ago, MT merely catered to 8,000 forum-users)

3. Insiders are coming - Luis and the writing staff are hard at work creating a slew of wonderfully insightful articles for all of our design enthusiasts that they hope will satiate your aesthetics appetites.

4. Greater Transparency - While we have multiple avenues through which you can voice your suggestions, critiques, or slander, such as email and/or through the forum “Site Feedback” subsection. I want to stress that MacThemes is first a foremost a community. You, our readers and forum members, have helped create an extremely unique community that will continue to evolve as we near our 7 year anniversary and enter a new decade. Though we’ve already decided on our feature set for our imminent site update, we have started to create a list of long term goals to make MacThemes into the go-to site for everything GUI-related (both Mac and iPhone). That being said, our eyes and ears are at full attention - so please, once again, do not hesitate to email us! We will also be making more conscious effort to communicate any site-related developments as they occur.

5. Supporting MacThemes - Though site downtime has decreased tremendously since our transition to MediaTemple from Blue Host during our “Theme For A Week” contest several years ago, we have not managed to completely quell it. MacThemes averages over 1 million sessions a month, a 400% increase in the past 2 - 3 years. Keeping MacThemes afloat requires both time and money. While ad revenue has managed to alleviate any monetary stress, we appreciate any and all donations. Our moderators and writers work hard and receive little compensation for their endless hours spent working on creating such a wonderful community. And, of course, our server can always use a little extra memory to further decrease downtime! [Of Course, if you are an independent Mac or iPhone software developer, MacThemes is a wonderful source of exposure - check out our “Advertising” page in the “About” section.

To all of our users - Thanks Again! These first 6 years and 335 days have been an absolute blast. Heres to another 7 more! And of course, Happy Holidays!

Sincerely,
Jonathan Komisar and the MacThemes Staff