WordPress.org has a clear set of rules for theme developers regarding what should go into a theme, and how. These are all constraints. Mandatory and necessary guidelines to make sure all WordPress.org themes offer more-or-less the same functionality for the end user. And that functionality is plain blogging nothing else. This makes WordPress less appealing for users―if they want a portfolio, a small business website, or anything special.
On the other hand there are other theme stores like ThemeForest with less constraints. Here one can find themes packed with extra functionality satisfying―literally―all kind of needs. This is what makes WordPress the most popular web platform of all times. By removing constraints these themes boost diversity and often times lower the quality.
Log Lolla was meant to be a WordPress.org theme to support a certain level of quality. Log Lolla Pro will build on that by adding new features which in turn follow WordPress.org standards. Combine quality with openness.
What Log Lolla Pro needs to do is to move from a plain blogging platform―imagined and designed more than 10 years ago―to a more modern tool to create knowledge from the everyday (online) activities of a person or small group.
When WordPress was created there were barely any social networks. Now it seems―after a spectacular rise―social networks are in decline due to their greedy and inhuman nature. People are migrating off the networks and they need a new tool where they can post their stuff like they have did before, but maybe with a better context, with better return of their investment. A WordPress and Log Lolla Pro combo?
This is the aim of the pro version of the Log Lolla theme: help people to post like on a social network, and, help people to get an insight about their own story. Let’s give back the meta information to the user, let’s give them tools to see their data from multiple angles, and let’s give them tools which makes them to grow, to be happy, and proud.
I’ve done this since 2013 and it works. All my knowledge―both technical and about the world―went into three self-made blogs, each with a special purpose.
Pulse is a high level technical overview of what goes around in the web design and development world + the internet sector in general. It collects links and creates a review for every year in form of keywords identifying major trends.
The Pulse screenshotBeat is more deep in the sense of being about original posts and ideas instead of links.
While Pulse gives knowledge about yearly meta-trends in form of buzzwords Beat creates knowledge which can be used every day. It has series of posts like What to learn next, Masters of web, and Web trends which collects web design and development best practices and inspiration in a form easily translatable into working code.
If I’m starting a new project I always come here for inspiration; when I’m finishing a project I’m always updating this blog with findings; Beat is like the groove of a musician―your own knowledge and style for work.
The Beat screenshotGust is another story, it is about a worldview instead of a work-view. It collects ideas and thoughts through ages about the control of culture―a lifelong hobby.
As Pulse and Beat, Gust is about knowledge but in another way: the audience is not the author but you. Anybody reading through this blog has to have the same understanding as the author has. And in plus it has to provide all source information to readers to let them re-check the facts, let them render their own view and knowledge from the same set of source.
The Gust screenshotLog Lolla Pro will merge all these three knowledge creation tools into a whole, and, using the Indie Web, it will be social in the sense of enabling collaboration and reach.