Only three weeks into 2009 and it has already been a hectic one for us here at Pliggs.  We have a new template, acquired new sponsors and added new features to our blog.

A week or so ago we added a feature to allow you to easily Tweet our posts should you feel they deserve it by adding the plugin TweetSuite.  It’s use has been limited but we hope to see more of you using this service.  You can follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Pliggs.

We changed our layout and design late last year due to widget overload, ease of use and the overall experience here at Pliggs.  We are extremely happy with our current layout and design and hope you are too.

You may have noticed that we have added a few banners recently, this is for a couple of reasons.  One, external sources see us as a good source of information and two, we have an upcoming contest coming soon.

The contest will require you to take part in a scavenger hunt, more details will be released soon.  If you would like to sponsor this contest please us know by contacting us.

A list of sponsors include:

• SEO Certification
• Host Gator
• Blog 2 Life
• Boxed Art

A couple of days ago we launched a new template call Pliggie, it is our first of 2009.  Once launched a couple of rendering issues came to light and as far as we know, all have been fixed.

More information and screenshots are available here or you can download

  FREE Pligg template - Pliggie (140.8 KiB, 1,082 hits)

We hope to release a new template soon and we are looking forward to our contest launch, let us know if you want to sponsor it.

Email Bag:

We receive numerous emails, usually about people wanting custom work, but this one really got us down and then irritated.  We have always prided ourselves on the fact that we provide FREE templates, we had one premium one that didn’t do well and have since decided to only do FREE templates.

Anyone who does templates knows it takes time to make a template, time no one is paying for.

Here’s the email:

Hello, i was wondering if you could make some premium themes or if you make theme to sell. I do like your themes but it seems that they are verry simple they miss a lot of colour and maybe some imagination i think you have the skills and you could make some great theme.
I know i can buy theme from pligg clubs but they are verry expensive.

Now it’s not that bad of an email, however, it’s the part of missing some imagination and color that really irritated us.  We are providing these templates for free and doing them on our own time, so emails saying we have no imagination is a real  kick in the pants.

We have not replied to this email and probably won’t, this post will be our response.  We do not do premium themes, we do however do custom work.  We are not friends with Photoshop so do not expect to see some fantastic graphics.

We will work on adding graphics and backgrounds to our future themes though.

What do you hope for from us this year?