Matt recently pondered a possible change in the themes at WordPress.com.
Anyway, one of the places we think is pretty under-used on our themes is the spot under the post and above the comments… We were brainstorming some ideas of what to put there… “related posts” is the most exciting but also the most difficult, but probably the one we’ll try to tackle first.
I disagree with the assumption that there should be something between the post and the comments. If there are comments on a post, I want to give them a chance to catch the reader’s attention. If there are no comments, I’d like the reader to see the invitation to comment.
I think it’s a good idea to display “related posts” on a permalink page. The way I’d like to see this implemented is as a sidebar widget. Yes, I know that this would make sense as a “conditional widget” that displayed only for permalink pages. But it’s not the only case for conditional widgets.
Another of the things that the WordPress gang have apparently considered for the same spot on the page is ads. Mentioning this may get the “We want Adsense on WordPress.com” crowd excited.
In the same post, Matt referred to “the way we display titles on permalink pages, with the post name first and the blog name second.” Since I don’t want to post only my disagreements, I’ll close by saying that I consider this the absolute best way to do it.
Now, please feel free to comment, even if WordPress.com shoves something between this post and the comments (or lack thereof)…