Joomla is a website Content Management System. Â It basically makes it easier for you to update your website and manage it's content. Â Most major websites run on some sort of content management system. Â If you've ever heard of Wordpress, it's THE most popular Content Management System (CMS) on the web right now for blogs. You can run a blog on Joomla, but I recommend it more for full-blown, full featured professional websites. Â A cool feature of Content Management Systems is that you can change the appearance, or "template" at anytime and all your articles, pages, video's and downloads will work just fine. Â Only the appearance changes - not the content.
Only newbies call it them Content Management Systems by the way, us pro's call them CMS's!
Why Joomla?
If you know me personally, or read my blog, it's no secret that Joomla is my favorite Content Management System (CMS). Â One of the reasons why is because it has some of the most robust Community extensions available on the market. Â Pretty much all the "major" CMS platforms have user registration, but registration capability does not equal community. Â The basic tools required these days to start a Community on your website are customizable profiles, a photo gallery, user to user direct messaging, comment "walls", and the ability to create a custom group or forum, to name a few!
Besides those features, the content management system also needs to meet certain basic requirements, and be able to perform some "basic" functions.
To be considered effective, a CMS should include AT MINIMUM the following:
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User Registration
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Community support (profiles, "friending" capability, photo uploads, user to user communication, walls, groups)
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Downloads System (audio, video, pdf, etc)
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Easy to Embed Multimedia, like Video
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Robust Commenting System
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Extendability - the ability to expand its features through Plugins
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Multi-Level User Access
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SSL / https Support
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Easy Site Backup System
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eCommerce plugins available - with paypal support.
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Social Networking connectivity, like Facebook Connect
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Template support
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Built-in search
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Search Engine Friendly URL's
Joomla has all these requirements COVERED. Â I could setup a brand new website in Joomla that had all these features, and MORE, in a few hours.
This is why I choose Joomla as my primary CMS.
Components in Joomla
The cool thing about Joomla is that you can add mini-applications to your Joomla powered website called "Components" that add powerful new abilities and features to your site. Â It's sort of like buying that brand new car with a regular "plain jane" radio and upgrading to a new surround sound system with bluetooth connectivity and iPod support. Â Components add new and powerful features that do not come included in a new Joomla installation.
JomSocial
While it's one of the newest Joomla Components on the market, JomSocial is the BEST in my humble opinion. JomSocial (short for Joomla Social) basically offers all the functions that Facebook offer's, but on YOUR OWN SITE! It also comes with a cool feature called Facebook Connect - the ability to let your friends on Facebook log into your website without creating a separate account on your site! Best of all, their security remains intact because Facebook doesn't share your password it JomSocial in any way!
Facebook Connect is an awesome feature, because while your friends may love you, they don't have the time to be creating website accounts all over the internet - who has the time to remember ANOTHER password? Â Now all they have to do is log in to your site using their Facebook information. Â They can even share their status updates and photos from Facebook on YOUR SITE!
Another cool feature of JomSocial is the Twitter Integration. Â You can have your Twitter stream published on your profile so you don't have to keep logging into Twitter as well. Â JomSocial really knocked it out of the park adding connectivity with the two most popular Social Networking sites on the net! This is why Joomla + JomSocial on your site is a unbeatable combo!
Besides the Facebook and Twitter Support, JomSocial has the following features:
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Custom Profile
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Photo and Video Uploads
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You can create and join custom groups
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User's can install Custom Applications
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Walls (Like Facebook)
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Activity Stream (Like Facebook)
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Users can create their own Blog on your site!
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User to User Messaging (like MySpace and Facebook Mail)
While I do use other Content Management Systems like Wordpress, none of them can hold a candle to Joomla with JomSocial when it comes to Community. Â Check out my Community at http://mikewayne.com/community and see it in action. Â If you have Facebook, you can even log in with ever registering on my site!
The final nail in the coffin on the benefits of using Joomla to create a Website Community is the fact that there are other Community Components for Joomla like Community Builder that have features just as cool as JomSocial!  I'll probably cover Community Builder in a future article.  For your convience, you can download Joomla here and buy (yes, it costs money) JomSocial here.
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