Splashing Pixels is Premium Theme provider that specializes in e-Commerce Themes. We are very happy to have them on board as a Silver sponsor. Splashing Pixels have also sponsored 10 Premium Themes for our attendees that will be up for grabs at WordCamp.
Tell us a bit about your business. How do you use WordPress?
I started out using the WordPress e-Commerce plugin back when they were at version 3.5. At that time this plugin was the most popular e-Commerce plugin for WordPress and it is still to date. Way back then, many people were using regular WordPress themes with this plugin and they would still need to customize their own site to make the e-Commerce part similar to the rest of their site. So I thought what if I started making e-Commerce specific themes so that people can just purchase a nicely designed theme that comes with the e-Commerce features/style and design all in one. With 16 years of web development experience, I utilized the knowledge I had to put together these themes that I think people love and enjoy to run their stores in. That is how Splashing Pixels was born. After 1 year of development and planning we opened our doors for business in April 2011.
Why WordPress?
Earlier in my development days I’ve used Drupal, Joomla and other not as popular CMS platforms. When WordPress started gaining momentum I saw a real opportunity to extend WordPress’ robust system. This is not to say that Drupal and Joomla can’t do the same, but the way WordPress is structured makes it incredibly easy to extend upon. In addition, WordPress is backed by such a great community and you can find support almost anywhere. The rest is history and WordPress became the CMS platform of choice for all my clients.
Why did you decide to get involved and sponsor WordCamp Cape Town 2011?
I’ve always wanted to sponsor a Wordcamp event but just never had the chance to do it. This time around the opportunity presented itself therefore I was honored to sponsor this event. To take part in something that is so great makes everything worth it. And of course to tell people about our company…wink wink…
What are your thoughts on the WordPress community as a whole? And the South African WP community?
The WordPress community is a great bunch. So much potential and so much talent resides in the community. I’ve never seen such a fast growing community compared to all the other CMS platforms out there. There is no doubt WordPress is here to stay and perhaps one day power your tv…I was not too familiar with the South African WordPress community, but I am excited to see how broad WordPress has spread. It is an international product and I am looking forward to seeing some of the work from South African WordPress developers. WordPress has seriously brought together people from all over the world. In a way it reminds me of the World Cup, when every four years people all over the world can co-exists in a game of peace and unity without violence.
What are you most looking forward to at WordCamp Cape Town?
It is a shame I will not be able to attend the 2011 Cape Town event, however if I was there, I would be looking forward to meeting new people that have an interest in WordPress and development. Perhaps gather different points of view on WordPress development and see how much WordPress has grown in the South African WordPress community.
Who in the WordPress community inspires you? Who do you follow?
Gosh, there would be too many people to name them all. But if I have to name a few, I would definitely point out Mark Jaquith and Andrew Nacin. They are both excellent developers which I look up to.
What is the most exciting improvement to WordPress that you have noticed in the last year?
Haha, this will be funny….But I am totally stoked with the new “fullscreen” feature of WordPress… This has got to be the feature of the year. Such a simple feature but incredibly needed and useful.
Where do you see WordPress 2 years from now?
WordPress 2 years from now…..hmmmm…I would predict that WordPress will become even easier to use with a fully integrated drag and drop frontend display. So all themes would be drag and droppable to your liking and no more need to write your own CSS code to float sidebars left or right, the drag and drop system would generate that code for you. This would not be limited to just the structure of the site but it should include every detail, such as blog post location and all meta information.
