Och yeah, My XOOPS banner gives me Google ads with 5usd Mambo hosting...

Herko,
I don't know who I need to talk too, but by adding 2 phrases to the existing code for the themes XOOPS comes with, we can get this process started.

Set the ALT tag in the logo to "content management system" on the xoops.org site.

Where the graphic for "Powered by Xoops" and then the text in the anchor text, "CMS". Put the text right after the <img src=""> tag.

That will get XOOPS ranking highly for the phrases
Content Management System
CMS

With more traffic, XOOPS will naturally get more XOOPS sites out there.

I'll make the changes myself if someone tells me where to send the finished themes to be reviewed and included in the install zip.


I can explain why this should work, but the details are not that important and would take some time.

I would happy to volunteer to get more 'business' for Xoops.
I just need a list of the people that I can talk to that will implement.

I don't agree that the best route is to send people out to tradeshows. IMO that is very ineffient.
Meet them right when they are looking for a CMS.

The magic happens where the 'rubber meets the road'.

I'd be happy to do some Press Releases. There would be an out of pocket cost of $80 to do those because of the service I use.

If I were allowed to 'lead' this inititive, in exchange I want a cool title.

perhaps I am wrong but I do think "XOOPS is, has been good enough", in terms of functionality and core features.
But it need be dressed up, or need be given a more professional face before being marketed or promoted.

It does not need too much time but just some kick-off action, as an example but perhaps not appropriate, a theme competition (sorry do not know the proper word) was discussed last year but no follow-up. QA is being established, glad to have been seeing it, too.

Some great CMS is said to be just "eye-candy", but it does help.
so, why not XOOPS?

I agree, XOOPS is good enough.
It seems that XOOPS can do most of the things that people need.

The challenge is that you really have to 'work' with the modules to understand that.

Most people dont' take that kind of time. So it must be spelled out for them.

I also think that people need to be encouraged to post descriptive comments in the Module repository.

It's frustrating to be looking for a particular module, find 7 different choice and have no no way of distinguishing which one is the best for my needs.

As Mithrandir mentioned in in this thread, we will soon have a roadmap available. The roadmap will help to organize marketing efforts.

Remember how I mentioned Firefox? What got their community so active to participate in marketing efforts, was the 1.0 release. Maybe for XOOPS it could be XooSphere?


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What about Meet-Up Groups? There are currently 11 groups, with 33 members We need to promote these groups more on the local support sites. Which will be difficult for Canada, USA, GB, Australia, so the english speaking groups, will need to do so on XOOPS.org.

Herko, how is yours going?

I have created a XOOPS User Group for Sydney. Anyone in the neighbourhood, please sign-up

(I will start a fresh thread with more details)

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@phppp:

- eye-candy: in the works (please read posts above!)
- theme competition: in the works, but on hold until XOOPS Theme Forge development has stabelised; once we know how things will work on the forge, we can plan for the 'going public', which will be with the competition. I don't know what you believe, but this is a hell of a lot of work, and there isn't much enthusiasm regarding contributions either.

Now, may I quote herko, who rephrased others in this thread, regarding what should be discussed in this thread:
Quote:

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@herko: what happened to the mascot idea? What was the feedback from the artist? If he reclined further usage, does anyone know someone competent, that could design us a new logo?

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How can we encourage users, to list their site with us?

What about a counter: XXXXX sites are powered by XOOPS?

Could we have a seperate 'Hosting Partners' section, where hosts can be listed, that have XOOPS preinstalled?

To be honest (and let me explain this) I do not believe XOOPS is any match comparing to other CMS's.

Xoops is a very good CMS starter, it's basic, it's got what a basic CMS needs and it's a good CMS to let starters understand what a CMS does.
But if you compare XOOPS with for instance PostNuke it lacks a lot of things and there's a huge space to grow. More and better modules, a better grading system... I know some of these points are being tackled and I hope these will work out for the best.

I use XOOPS on several sites myself, mainly because of the easy way XOOPS works. That doesn't mean I adore Xoops, I see a lot of room for improvement. Never the less XOOPS is an ideal system for smaller sites, commercial and non-commercial.

Like I said I think XOOPS is the best CMS for starters and maybe that's a good focuspoint to market on. Make XOOPS the best userfriendly system for a starter, that'll maybe mean that to focus of growth doesn't look at minor developments of the excisting system (Xoops 2.1 may be a good ending in development) and start developing good and new modules. Looking at other systems, what's their strenght, what can be adopted to Xoops, why do users really want to use Xoops, what do they expect...

First point to make XOOPS better should be a survey. Asking users of XOOPS what they like and dislike, what they need and do not need, what they think should be developed and which way XOOPS should turn.

Don't be affraid of critics, they will show you the points you can improve on! Maybe it's an idea to open a special forum for critics. Don't let the Xoops-staff answer to those posts, just let the users argue. This way you'll get a better insight in the problems of XOOPS and directs to points of improvement.

BTW: Herko and Rowdie: what about the Q: 'is XOOPS good enough to be in the top?' That's a question ppl ask and maybe answer by saying 'No'. Like I said before there's room for improvement and maybe that improvement needs to be done before you can promote a really excellent and good product.
I think XOOPS is a good product for ppl who start with CMS, focus on that, there's a good base of users and developers. A good product will sell itself, like XOOPS does now, but give it time. Development and promotion go hand in hand.

But let me be the first to make and put a 'powered by Xoops' banner on my site, so you'll understand my good intentions.



(Do not leach this image, you can copy it for free!!)

This is my 5 cents...

I think we had better start splitting this topic a little ...

1 - XOOPS as it is:

Yes, it fine on the whole... my wishes on as it stands? A quick-start version so any newcomers can install with ease. Many new starters will not understand installing modules etc until they've started playing with it for a while... and by that time they may have lost interest.

2 - XOOPS as it can be:

Improving variety and quality of modules and themes, and steering people to making up for missing modules.

This is where the new groups steering and developing XOOPS and its quality have an important place.

Perhaps we should look towards more ports from other platforms as a stop gap? I don't like this myself, but we're losing out against other lesser platforms because of their modules.

Herko - I wouldn't ask me to run a drinking night in a well stocked bar I leave things like that to more intelligent and capable people...

Quote:

Some good ideas here....

I would add to these:

Officially recognised logo usage... perhaps dust off the Xoopsy mascot? A standard "power by Xoops" logo and perhaps an award scheme for recognised excellent sites? It's nice to be able to publicy say that you've a recognised quality site.

Conferences: well they can only really be represented by key people, so that's perhaps down to major figures like the XOOPS foundation team?

News: Perhaps even the odd press-release to news people like the Inquirer or register after major releases (not bug fixes - baaaadddd publicity!)

Keywords? Well I would say ease of use - except to be honest, I haven't used other systems (except Coranto and hand coded php ... yuck!) so I can't comment on that.

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I don't think that would be a good idea... there are some very talented people around who I would recommend, except as the case always is - they end up doing far too much anyway.

But no, not myself.

Although I don't mind helping out.

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That's my Point C. in my previous post I think the XooSphere stable release (which is still quite a bit away) presents the opportunity of a lifetime to organise a *real* campaign. I like the Firefox campaign, but that was actually *against* the (worse but immensely more popular) alternative. I'm not sure if we need to take such a stand, but perhaps XooSphere will be revolutionary in the CMS world... That doesn't disqualify the idea at all tho, and there are some very good examples of promotion we can use for our own purposes.

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I just signed up for such a group, and was presented the opportunity to become it's major organiser. I didn't start it tho. And I think we had ours at XOOPSDEM
I think that the meetups are a good idea, but that they should be organised by the local support sites. And we can't force it, people will only come if there is something to get.

What we could do tho, is to create a 'masterclass XOOPS for beginners' package with CD's, Flash tutorials, booklets etc. that people can use to organise Install Parties at local centers or schools or whatever...

Quote:
Ah, you first tell phppp that a lot is already in the works, and then you ask me for things that are also in the works? We have a very competent artist who is willing and able to create a new mascot for XOOPS. I sadly haven't had the time to comment on his designs much, but they are very nice.
As for a new logo, you know very well how that is going. Asking for a competent designer who can create a new one for us is actually saying that the one I have designed and proposed to you and the themeforge team is not good enough. I still believe it is, as part of, and perhaps starting point of a new corporate look for the whole of the XOOPS project. I'll post it here for comments soon.
The concept of the mascot is to use a fox. It's orange/white, sly, fast, and the fox is one of the few animals with an X (and the Friends Of XOOPS also have the same abbreviation). I'd rather have a discussion on this concept then on his designs tho. So I won't post them here -yet.

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That is something we can start doing in XOOPS 2.1/2.2. Hosting partners is something different, as this means that every hist that has Fantastico is listed, and that doesn't say much.

Did you know that the Lycos OneClick(tm) system has XOOPS? So every Lycos user can install XOOPS with just one click...

Herko