Merging Oxwall.com and Oxwall.org

As you know, more than a month ago we introduced Oxwall.com — the supported Oxwall solution with the help from our friends at Skalfa.

The reasoning was simple — to stop confusing the majority of people coming to Oxwall. They want to launch their own community websites but do not know their way around technical aspects of that.

Now after a month it’s obvious that those who come to the livechat at Oxwall.com are still confused. Typical questions we get:

  • How is Oxwall.com different from Oxwall.org?
  • What is the difference between these 2 versions of Oxwall?
  • Can I buy this version and then install plugins from the .org version?

The thing is, Oxwall.org has always been (with mixed success) the destination for two types of audiences at once: some looking for a product, while others needed a platform. The introduction of Oxwall.com highlighted this discrepancy. Some people still think that Oxwall.org is a product destination and thus assume that there are free and commercial versions of Oxwall.

To counter that confusion with a natural next step, we will separate the two destinations. The former Oxwall.org will now become developers.oxwall.com. Oxwall.com will serve mainstream users who want product, developers.oxwall.com will serve developers and tech-savvy users who want platform. The site URL speaks for itself.

Goals

By making Oxwall.com the main destination for all things Oxwall we aim to achieve the following things:

1) Most people (those needing help) will be able to get it right away — see demo, features, ask simplest questions, buy the supported solution with free installation;

2) Those having special needs with custom projects will also be able to talk to the Oxwall.com team representatives;

3) Those who just want a free copy of Oxwall and know what to do with it, will click “Download” or “Developers” link;

4) Developers will just bookmark developers.oxwall.com for all platform-, repository- and store-related things.

Basic needs of the majority are covered right at the door, sophisticated needs of the minority are a click away.

Developers

By having a dedicated developers’ resource, we’ll be able to further optimize it as such. We are planning to:

1) Open up the Github repository for the community strategically (something that existed in a shadow form before), provide all necessary Oxwall repo instruments for contributions and feedback;

2) Implement StackExchange-like forum which is a proven superior formula for question-answer types of communities instead of free-form discussions;

3) Offer nightly build downloads for plugin developers and enthusiasts.

This will be possible without the risk of increasing confusion for non-developers and non tech-savvy users. Hopefully, this is going to serve both parts of the community better.

Blogs

From now on we will maintain both, the main blog (consumer-oriented, for product news), and developer blog devblog.oxwall.com (for platform news, beta releases and all things technical). You can expect these blogs to appeal to these separate types of audiences, removing the unnecessary confusion.

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Open source projects start with communities but thrive on infrastructure. If the examples of Linux/RedHat or Drupal/Acquia are any indication, we need to make sure that both of our audiences are served well in their own distinct ways.

Since Oxwall project is past the stage of early adopters, we need to change to accommodate the needs of mainstream consumers. We strongly believe that this will help to reinvest more funds into Oxwall development, streamline serving developer community needs, and ultimately, create more quality sites built with Oxwall.

Plugin Links: looking for a new owner

We at Oxwall always try to streamline our operations because there’s only so much a small team can do. Sometimes it means that we have to give up an area of activity that no longer serves community’s best interests. Today is the case with one of our old-timer plugins, Links (view item in the store).

Rather than let it slide into the oblivion, we decided to give away this plugin to a 3rd party. Probably somebody can take better care about it than we did. So, if you:

1) have experience with Oxwall plugin development;
2) have ideas how to improve this plugin;
3) are ready to make it happen,

… send an email to info@oxwall.org and let us know about your vision for this plugin. Also, don’t forget to attach the link to your plugin portfolio. We’ll review the applications and hand the ownership to the best applicant.

Thank you,
Oxwall team

P.S. The new owner is found, thank you.

Oxwall Store: important improvements

Hello there Oxwallers,

Our community grows. It’s exciting to see this growth since it assures that our work is important, and warrants that Oxwall is here to stay. With user growth some aspects of the community work also need to evolve, and today it’s the Oxwall Store that is affected.

We just released some small and big improvements that I want to introduce. They are based on developers’, designers’ and users’ feedback, and also on our own careful examination of the usage patterns. Let’s look in detail:

My purchases:

  • Item list is now divided into Plugins and Themes;
  • Search by item name (new);
  • Add review for purchased items right there (new).

My items:

  • Item list is now divided into Plugins and Themes;
  • Search by license key and buyer’s username.

Item listing improvements:

  • Oxwall Store now supports version compatibility between items and the platform. From now on every item should state platform versions that it supports, and users will see it;
  • Mandatory “Terms of Use” field for items (new);
  • Optional “ReadMe” field for items (new).

Suspended items:

  • Suspended items are now shown to license holders in “My Items”;
  • “Item suspended” page is shown to all but license holders;
  • Suspended items can’t be deleted by owners but will be deleted in 4 months unless activated by Store moderators.

Reviews:

  • Now authors can not only modify but also delete their reviews.

Apart from these changes there are many tiny things changed to help developers better manage their items.

Policy updates

Last but not least, we have updated Oxwall Store Terms of Use, and added Store Item Policy and Item Review Policy. Everybody is encouraged to actually read this document, it’s written by humans for humans in the most comprehensive way possible.

Enjoy the updated Oxwall Store and leave your feedback! We are always listening. Also, there’s a special Store-related forum, so developers can find additional technical info and questions.

Service provider interview: YouNet

We are starting our interview series with individuals and companies creating all kinds of products and solutions for Oxwall. The first in the spotlight is YouNet company. Here we go:


YouNet is a leading niche social network consulting company with more than 120 engineers. We offer full services for Oxwall including Consulting, Plugins, Templates and Customization. With more than 4 years of experience, having completed 400+ social projects, we are the best partner for your success.

Q: Please introduce yourself and tell us about your experience in web development.

A: Formed in 2008, we are a company dedicated to services on open source platforms for social networks. Over the years, we have developed many useful tools and solutions for social network development projects. We have completed more than 400 projects so far including governmental projects.

Q: What level of projects are you ready to tackle for the benefit of Oxwall users?

A: We provide full-cycle services starting from consulting, design, development and maintenance. Consulting is very important as it is the first step to build a successful project in terms of cost, schedule, and quality. During consultation, we synthesize our technical experience with our client business concepts to develop a feasible and successful social network.

Q: What sort of client-company communication model do you employ? Share the rules and regulations if you have any.

A: One of our strengths is the communication process with clients. We use Online Project Management Tracking System (Jira) in which clients can work/communicate with us as a leader of project so that they can monitor all activities/changes of the project with Agile Model. In addition, we also provide chat and phone for further communication when needed.

younet
Figure 1: YouNet Communication Process

Q: Do you see any particular shortcomings within Oxwall software that need immediate attention?

A: The first prominent shortcoming of Oxwall is that it does not provide rich options for Admin configuration, especially for layout customization; For instance, it seems that widget option to drag/drop is not supported in many pages, but only Homepage and Dashboard. The provided layout and functionality also introduce some uncommon designs, such as when users want to embed a YouTube video link in Feeds, they have to copy whole embed code instead of URL only, which may make users confused.

Q: Do you have any plans to develop and release purely Open Source products for Oxwall?

A: We plan to develop most popular plugins for Oxwall platform by the end of this year. With these plugins, we hope to bring the community a complete productivity suit to further advance their social network to the next level.

Q: Are you currently developing your own plugins and templates for Oxwall? What can we expect in the nearest future?

A: Yes, we are working on some plugins. We are going to have a dedicated team making templates and plugins for Oxwall as well. That is our commitment in supporting Oxwall community.


Check out YouNet store profile and feel free to ask your own questions in comments bellow. We hope to have company representatives answer them.

Vote for Oxwall at 2013 Critic’s Choice CMS Awards

We are busy with Oxwall 1.6, we just gave developers enough material to be busy with, and now we have an idea what the rest of the community could do.

Oxwall has been nominated for the Critic’s Choice CMS Awards again this year. I’ll remind you that in 2012 Oxwall won People Choice award in the Best Social Network Solution category, thanks to you.

So, if you want to vote for Oxwall this year again, here’s how to do it:

  1. Go to Critic’s Choice CMS Awards homepage;
  2. Enter your name and email;
  3. In the Best Social Network Solution category (last on the form) choose Oxwall and submit.

It’s the fastest and easiest way to show your appreciation for our hard work, while we fight for your convenience. With Oxwall 1.6 we are aiming to repeat and exceed the impact of Oxwall 1.5 last year, so now you can do it, too.

Thank you,
Emil Sarnogoev & the Oxwall Foundation team

SkaDate Lite: Oxwall for dating

While we work on this much awaited release (1.6 with mobile), our friends from Skalfa shipped the first commercial product based on Oxwall – SkaDate Lite.

This is an impressive product and a business solution for setting up an online dating site. Skalfa has been working in online dating market for almost a decade, so it’s fascinating to see Oxwall platform as the basis for a sophisticated business product.

Technically, SkaDate Lite consists of the Oxwall platform, specific dating plugins, dating site themes, and support solutions. A smart move by a commercial company that opens up the potential of the platform.

Right now we are talking to several other entities who plan to create vertical products based on the Oxwall core. We are ready to offer all kinds of assistance for that. This was our long-term goal from the very start, since Oxwall is a sophisticated platform that provides instant community features for any type of a website. SkaDate Lite is the first, but definitely not the last Oxwall-based third party product.

This is only the beginning.

The state of Oxwall 1.6

We are 5 days before the end of June, which we promised as the month of Oxwall mobile release. I have to inform you that we move the target release date to August.

We are deep in design and development, we make a lot of iterations to finally deliver the best result. This forces us to change plans because we always prefer quality to speed. That way we can deliver the results that you’ve come to expect from Oxwall.

This piece of news may disappoint somebody, but it’s all about not disappointing you with the product.

Critics Choice CMS Awards

Now, while we are working hard to put our best effort into your hands for free, you can do something in return. CMS Critic announced nominations for Critics Choice CMS Awards for this year.

Just to remind you, in 2012 Oxwall won People’s Choice award in the “Best Social Network Solution” nomination. Many of you contributed to this recognition, and now it’s time to repeat and outperform it.

  • Go to Critics Choice CMS Awards nomination form;
  • Enter your name and email;
  • Enter “Oxwall” as the product name;
  • Tick off the “Best Social Networking Solution’ category.

You are done. Oxwall is on its way to conquer the world.

We are excited with the growth of the project and can’t wait to give you the next major piece of Oxwall evolution. Let’s create the next wave of the social Internet together.

Thanks,

Emil

Oxwall Foundation

Oxwall Launchpad from Skalfa LLC

Good news!

Our good friends at Skalfa announced the launch of professional services for Oxwall.

Skalfa is not the first company to offer commercial assistance for Oxwall software, but this offer is unique. It’s a service from the original Oxwall authors, since Oxwall was created as one of Skalfa projects. Also, it’s positioned as “Oxwall for everybody” and claimed to be “affordable for projects with any budget”.

All in all, emerging commercial services are a good sign and a valuable addition for the Oxwall project. We encourage other companies to take notice and fulfill the growing demand.

Feel free to check what Skalfa has to offer: skalfa.com/launchpad.

Oxwall team

Holiday schedule

After successfully releasing Oxwall 1.5, we will spend some well-deserved time with our families.

You will probably not hear from us on December 31 and January 1. You can see us posting on forums and answering questions again on January 2.

Happy holidays!

Paid items in the Oxwall Store: price vs quality

We have a forum user who touched the topic that we are very sensitive about, so in the process of writing the reply I understood we should make our position clear to everyone.

Here’s the original topic: http://www.oxwall.org/forum/topic/6787

Here’s my reply:


Ebony,

You are right. Oxwall needs more free plugins and themes. The long-term project success is based on building enough of a product of superior quality that will enable users run their projects on Oxwall.

The project needs exactly this type of developers and designers — those working for the idea of giving away people excellent software and seeing what happens. That’s how an open source project works before gaining critical mass. Only then people will use software for viable community projects and more people will learn about Oxwall and the demand in software will increase.

But.

All of this is only possible if the resulting product quality is good. Meanwhile, the best developers and designers know the price of their time and only spend it accordingly.

We think the best scenario for Oxwall is to have A LOT of free items and some excellent paid items. So, solving the problem here is not to make bad plugins cheaper but to develop very good plugins and charge what’s reasonable. As for bad plugins, we are on a mission to not let them in and to push them out. If you buy an unsatisftory plugin on the Oxwall Store, give it low rating. Enough low rates will remove the item from the listings.

Too bad, not many of current developers understand that there’s no point in creating a heap of cheap items. Impulse purchases do not create trust and long-term value. Developers and designers should create less items and focus on their quality. It’s just a better business model.

In the end of the day, if there’s excellent free software with necessary third party items of high quality, the end user will not care that much about their price. If price is their only factor of choice, they are not really Oxwall’s target audience. I’ve never seen viable online community projects from people who value the price of software plugins more than their time and their users’ experience. Open source is not about the $0 price tag. It’s about accessibility, options, and trust.

Our position regarding the third party items in the Oxwall Store:

  • We will encourage more free items;
  • No matter free or paid, they will have to be of good quality;
  • We choose “less but better” strategy for the Oxwall Store;
  • We do not plan to drive the item prices down. Open market will decide.

Increasingly, it will be possible to find more plugins outside the Oxwall Store. This is fine, it’s open source after all. It’s just that we plan to maintain the high standard on the official resource for the mainstream users.

Thanks,
Emil