In this section you can read Alledia blog posts about business issues.
Last week, I discussed Acquia which provides managed commercial grade support for Drupal sites. This week, I’m going to talk about some companies that don’t quite have $7 million in their back pocket, but are creating new support and hosting products for Joomla.
I’m always fascinated by new business models in the Joomla world, so I’ll let the leaders of these two projects explain what they’re up to:
I try to avoid quoting other people’s opinions and articles on this blog, but over the weekend I found a newspaper article about the interaction of search engines and the stock market that was absolutely fascinating. It also seems like an appropriate topic with this week’s events on Wall Street.
Recently we’ve had to deal with a problem that faces a lot of popular sites … people have started ripping off our content, business model and even our slogan.
Here’s a few ideas for dealing with this situation if and when it happens to you.
Would people copy what you’re doing if they thought it was irrelevant. The more popular you get, the more you can expect people to rip off your ideas. Embrace it as a sign that you’re doing well and are starting to dominate the conversation in your niche.
Continue reading “Dealing With People Who Copy Your Site and Business Model”
Note: Please be aware that this post contains some disturbing quotes to make its point.
What on earth is wrong with the Washington Post.
The Washington Post is one of the oldest newspapers in the U.S. and one of the most important because it’s read by D.C.’s powerbrokers. It’s famous for numerous stories from the Spanish-American war to Watergate.
The Post is allowing decades of its reputation to be destroyed online. Their site has already been in trouble for posting spurious chain-emails as facts, but it seems as if they’re sinking even lower at the moment.
Continue reading “How the Washington Post is Ruining its Brand Online”
We’ve posted a few times about Group Jive, the only component available for Joomla that allows site members to create their own social networking groups. I’ve called it a vital extension if Joomla hopes to compete as a social networking platform, but the project has had a checkered history and unfortunately it seems that its stumbling again. They’re on MicroPledge.com looking for donations to help make the component work natively on Joomla 1.5.
Rocketwerx recently did something very similar and raised over $2500 towards finishing their Joomla 1.5 and phpBB3 Bridge. That caused a mixed reaction from members of their forum but its possible that this fundraiser may breathe new life into the Group Jive effort.
Continue reading “GroupJive and How to Support GPL Projects”
“Does putting yourself in a position where someone else can turn off all your income just by saying two words (?You?re fired?) sound like a safe and secure situation to you? Does having only one income stream honestly sound more secure than having 10?” Steve Pavlina.
Not long ago a developer was told me that his wife wanted him to diversify away from Joomla. Not leave Joomla, just diversify. I’ve since talked with a lot of people who don’t seem to think its worth the effort.
She was right. Too many people who assume the Joomla gravy train will never end. It will. It might be next week or it might not be for many more years, but it will. You and I both need an exit plan. Relying on one income stream is dangerous, whether its a job or a website business.
Continue reading “What Joomla People Can Learn from Bear Sterns”
A big congratulations today to one of our former clients. We mentioned Bleacher Report back in 2006 when we explained how we helped them get accepted to Google News.
They have a very smart business model that we’ve seen several times recently:
Last year we made a post we made last year talking about how large some Joomla companies were in terms of staff. Is it possible to get any more precise details on how well some sites are doing? Yes, some sites do make data publicly available …
Continue reading “How Much Money Do Joomla Template Sellers Make?”
Is anyone nowadays keen to work for someone else? In the online world, I’m not so sure.
Scoreboard Media started me on this train of thought about six months ago by asking:
“If you can rank a site in lucrative markets, why would you do it for clients instead of for yourself?
Last year, we pointed out that very few Joomla companies employ more than five people, and don’t see anything changes this year, next or in fact any time soon. The simple fact is, there is a new business model emerging:
Companies have a core of 1 to 4 people, often equal in status. They specialize in a particular niche and then they rely on partnerships with other similar, small companies to cover their other bases. Actual hiring seems to be a thing of the past.
So much is written about SEO nowadays that its easy for great articles to slip by unnoticed. That happened this weekend with an article called "When Bad News Follows You" in the New York Times.
The article outlines how the Times has been opening up its archives – and at the same time uncovering a myriad of shameful or just wrong information that people want to stay hidden. Apparently:
"People are coming forward at the rate of roughly one a day to complain that they are being embarrassed, are worried about losing or not getting jobs, or may be losing customers because of the sudden prominence of old news articles that contain errors or were never followed up. "
All of this is the "unhappy byproduct of something called search engine optimization, which The Times has been using to make money by driving traffic to its Web site."
Continue reading “Fascinating Article About Embarrassing Search Results”
First up, apologies in advance but posting will be light this week. I’ve managed to write every workday this year, but my family are visiting from England and I’ll concentrate on spending time with them for a few days.
I thought I’d share with you a quick rule-of-thumb that I’ve stated to use to help clients who are new to the Open Source World. I call it the 80% / 20% Rule.
I’ve been following the Joomla GPL debate really closely, but have stayed away from blogging about my opinion. I’m not a 3rd party developer, nor I am I knowledgeable enough about the GPL to add more to the debate than others already contributing.
What does fascinate me and cross into my direct sphere of knowledge is the issue of GPL business models. I’ve already rambled a little about business under the GPL and would love to pick the brains of you guys too:
Continue reading “Business opportunities in the Joomla world”