The Joomla Project announced on December 22 the newest Beta version for our favorite CMS, Joomla 2.5.  This will be the second release since converting over to their new six month release cycle.  In this article I will outline what you can expect from this new version, how to upgrade to it, and why this version matters to you.

What is the Joomla 2.5 Beta for?

This beta is being released to allow the public to test and play with this new version. Developers can install it and test their extensions to make sure they work. Website administrators can download it and test the upgrade process from Joomla 1.7 to Joomla 2.5.0 on their development sites.
It’s important to note that this version should not be used on a live or a production site. Changes are still being made and running beta scripts such as this on a active site is poor form. Test it, play with it, try and break it, but don’t use it for Grandmas new muffin website.

I like my muffins fresh out of SVN

When will Joomla 2.5 come out of beta?

The Joomla Project people have stated that it will go stable around January 10th, 2012. New releases will come out every six months after that. ex: 2.5.1, 2.5.2 and so on. Of course these are not exact dates, remember Joomla is coded by volunteers.

Will Upgrading from Joomla 1.7 to Joomla 2.5 be hard?

Nope. Remember back a few months ago when Joomla 1.7 was released and we talked about it’s features? The most important new option was upgrades via the administration area. You can safely upgrade from Joomla 1.7 to Joomla 2.5 via a click of a button. Obviously you should test this in your sandbox first and not on a live site, but it will drastically speed up your upgrade process.

How can I upgrade Joomla 1.5 to Joomla 2.5?

There is no upgrade path from J1.5 -> J2.5. You will have to migrate. There are a variety of changes from J1.5 to newer versions including changes to tables and the ACL (access control list) so a migration is the only way. If you are comfortable with migrating from different Joomla releases you probably have a system in place. If not, you can try out this extension. I personally have not tried it, but it seems pretty straightforward. Take all the usual precautions and backup your databases and files before doing something like this. Try it on your development site first and test the process before doing it on a live site.

Will iJoomla extensions work on Joomla 2.5?

We plan to keep up with the development and convert all the products that are 1.7 to 2.5.

Have you installed Joomla 2.5 beta yourself?

Let us know in the comments what your experiences have been and if you had any problems. We would love to know what you think.

Joomla Social Ad Targeting with JomSocial & Ad Agency

We get lots of suggestions from our customers for features and Joomla enhancements that they’d like to see. We try to act on those suggestions whenever possible.

We’ve now acted on the request that we see most often.

We’ve integrated  JomSocial with Ad Agency!

This revolutionary version of Ad Agency will help you take your advertising program to the next level — guaranteed!

Why JomSocial?

Let’s face it, since JomSocial came out, other community components for Joomla have been put to shame! JomSocial is comprehensive, powerful and its developers keep adding cool new features all the time. When it comes to Joomla and Social, JomSocial is the best solution around.

Target Any Ad Based on JomSocial Profile Info

• Want to show your ads only to women?
• Want to show your ads only to people with a college degree?
• Want to show your ads only to women over 30 with a college degree?

Easy! Simple! Done.

It’s called “Social Media Targeting.”

What is Social Media Targeting ?

Social Media Targeting lets you use all of the demographic data available on social media sites to shoot your ads directly to the people most likely to buy.

From Wikipedia:

Video: Social Targeting With Jom Social and Ad Agency

Click here to view the embedded video.

If Facebook Does it, So Should You

Ever notice how well the ads on Facebook match your interests? It’s creepy… like Facebook can read your mind.

Actually, it can read your profile.

Everyone on Facebook has a profile, and that profile is packed with valuable information. It let advertisers be very specific about who sees their ads. Google has nothing that comes close. AdWords? That’s so five years ago. Social ads are what it’s all about now. It’s the secret to successful advertising and it’s what’s made Mark Zuckerberg a very rich man.

It’s Great for You Because:

When you can convince your advertisers that they can target the very best leads, you’ll find it easier to sell your space and for a lot more money!

After all, would you rather pay $100 for 5,000 useless clicks or $200 for 200 clicks that might actually convert?

Advertisers don’t have to throw their hard earned cash on people who aren’t likely to buy their products

It’s Great for Advertisers Because:

They don’t have to throw their hard earned cash on people who aren’t likely to buy their products. They can be as specific as they want with their ad and target ONLY the people who are the most likely to turn into paying customers.

For example, when I advertise iJoomla.com on Facebook, I only show my ads to people who mention “Joomla.” I don’t want to pay for people to click on my ad unless they are using Joomla and may become customers.

Ad Targeting – The Secret of Your Advertising Program Success

If you want to sell advertising packages on your website, you need to offer content-targeted advertising. It’s the only way to be sure you’re monetizing your website in the most effective way possible.

Help Advertisers Choose You, Not Your Competition

To persuade prospective advertisers to advertise on YOUR site and not on your competitors’ sites, you have to convince them that their money will be well-spent.

You have to make them believe that they will get back the maximum amount of revenue from their investment.

Here’s the advice your advertisers are likely reading online:

As you can see, advertisers are being advised NOT to advertise on any site unless it allows them to target their ads — smart advice!

You have to convince advertisers that their money will be well-spent.

You Can Charge More for Targeted Ads!

Targeted ads get more response than generic ads. We’ve seen it again and again, and that value translates into higher prices.

You can charge 2-10 times more for targeted ads! Give your advertisers the ability to target their ads and your site will be much further down the road to serious financial success.

Seamless and Effective Integration

I know. You think integrating targeted ads is going to be a lot of work and the last thing you want is more work.

I get it. As an entrepreneur myself, I know you don’t want a bigger workload. So let me assure you that adding targeted ads is the easiest and most seamless integration you could ever hope for!

How Does It work?

Select the profile questions to include in ad targeting.

Select which fields you'd like to include in the social media targeting

On the back-end, the admin can choose the ad’s targeting.

Adding Social Targeting to an ad on the backend

And on the front-end, advertisers can now choose the ad targeting, too.

Advertisers can choose how to target the ad

Do you have an online community? Will you be using this feature?

MediaPass for Joomla!

Ever since the first days of iJoomla, right back when we came out with iJoomla Magazine, people have been asking me if we had a solution to enable paid subscriptions. We didn’t. I’d always hoped that someone else would come up with something and while a few extensions were created over the years to provide a solution, I just couldn’t get excited about any of them.

A couple of months ago though, MediaPass asked me to create a Joomla integration for their product. Their home page promises to add a subscription feature, just like the big publications use, within minutes. I was impressed! So I agreed, got to work, and… two months later, we have MediaPass for Joomla — an easy subscription service for Joomla sites.

Video: what is MediaPass for Joomla?

Click here to view the embedded video.

MediaPass take on all the tricky stuff. They handle the payments through their secure server and they deal with the customer service. All you have to do is install the extension we’ve created and choose your pricing plans. You get a check each month with your profits. MediaPass keeps 35 percent of the subscription fee for doing all the processing work and you keep the remaining 65 percent. That’s a fair deal in my opinion considering all the work that they do.

I don’t know of any other solution that’s so easy to implement, especially with our MediaPass for Joomla extension. I certainly can’t think of one so full of great new features such as the ability to add MediaPass automatically to articles.

So how does it work?

Once MediaPass is activated on the page, visitors are presented with the subscription box instead of the content. If they want to keep reading, they have to purchase a subscription. Very simple and very effective.

You can show the subscription box in two ways:

In Page

The subscription box appears right inside the page (view demo)

Page Overlay

The subscription box covers the entire window (view demo)

Here are some of MediaPass’s main features:

• Add MediaPass automatically to articles of chosen categories.
• Choose which part of the article will be covered by the subscription box. You can cover the entire article or only the text that comes after the “read more” tag.
• Add the MediaPass manually to individual articles using tags.
• Set the pricing for the subscription plans through   mediapass.com .
• Customize your messaging and logo on the subscription box, also through  mediapass.com access.
• View reports on  mediapass.com .

And it even works for video too!

Create an instant teaser by showing the MediaPass subscription box after a few seconds of your video. To see the rest of the video, viewers have to pay for a subscription. Just add the MediaPass video code and decide how much of the film you need to show to land paid subscriptions. Easy!

View the video overlay demo here >>

And the best feature of all? MediaPass for Joomla is FREE!

Screen shots:

The MediaPass subscription box will replace your content

Choose which categories to include automatically

MediaPass for Joomla! Settings

Knowing where your module positions are located is one of the most fundamental things you need to know when creating a site with Joomla 1.7, however, for some reason it’s not as easy to find as you would think. It was evident in the Joomla 1.7 usability testing I performed a few weeks ago. The tester simply couldn’t find it. Nor could I. I figured I would be able to do it on Joomla 1.7 relatively easily, but I had to hear about it from John Coonen from CMS Expo.

It was not easy to figure out in Joomla 1.5 but at least it was available as a default value. On Joomla 1.7 you’d have to purposely activate this feature to even see it.

Watch this video that explains how to find the module positions on Joomla 1.7:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Or read this explanation:

• Go to extensions-> templates
• Switch to templates tab
• Click on Options button on top right
• Choose “Enable” on the “Preview Module Position” field
• Save

Now you will see a preview link next to the template thumbnail.

A simple solution:

A simple solution to make things easier for everybody would be to add a preview link next to the “choose position” button, this way it is much easier to find.

Place a link to the site preview with module positions right where the user selects a module position

Did you bump into this issue? How did you find the solution?

The roadmap to Joomla bliss

If you use Joomla you are no doubt confused about the direction that the Joomla versions are taking.  I admit, I work with Joomla daily and it has been confusing for even me to follow.  If you Google “Joomla roadmap” the first result is from 2007, and the rest of the results are just as topical.

You won’t find much helpful info until you look for “Joomla versions“, and even then it’s not official info, it’s blog posts from other Joomla companies.  No matter, I’m happy to see Joomla is progressing in the right direction finally.

The official Joomla channel posted this video showing the detailed Joomla roadmap and explains the new Joomla versions in detail.

Click here to view the embedded video.

If you cannot watch the video, in a nutshell, Ron Severdia of the Production Leadership Team explains the versions and Sandy Ordonez asks various questions.

Joomla will go from 1.7 -> 1.8 -> 2.0.  Minor releases will be 2.1, 2.2, 2.3 and long term releases will end in .5.   So a long term release will be 2.5, 3.5, 4.5 for example.  These long term releases will be supported for 18 months.  Minor releases will not have new features, just bug and security fixes.  Long term releases will have bug and security fixes, as well as potentially new toys and changes.

The most important takeaway from this is to make sure you upgrade to Joomla 1.7 as soon as possible.   This will be the first version with one click updating from inside your administrator control panel.   In a previous blog post I covered why you would want to upgrade soon.  All in all, it will make your life easier and upgrades a snap.

Are the new Joomla versions confusing to you?  Did this post help?

iJoomla Ad Agency is always a work in progress and even though we try hard to make it user-friendly, we have received reports that some advertisers have found the front-end confusing. So we decided to do usability testing. As always, it was a very eye-opening experience — even a mortifying one. When you’re doing Web and software development you simply have to do usability testing.There is no other way to predict how users actually use your product until you see them doing it.

This is just one of many usability tests we plan to do for Ad Agency; we are committed to making it the most user-friendly Joomla extension in the world!

Giles Fabris of DieHardCustomers agreed to act as the advertiser. He went through the sign-up and ad placement process.

Usability testing video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Issues found:

The main issues were that notices were in the wrong places at the wrong times and that there was a lack of emphasis on the desired action button.

1. The “Your account pending approval” notice isn’t clear enough.
2. The “Select the ad type” notice isn’t clear enough.
3. User didn’t see the home button.
4. The notice on the adding banner page is confusing.
5. The notice on the adding campaign page is confusing.
6. The user seems stuck on an endless loop, confused by the placement of the notices.
7. The user tends to click on the Cancel button instead of the Continue button

As always, the best action to take after doing usability testing is simply to get to work and fix all the issues as quickly as possible. And so we did. It took us a a couple of days to make the changes and add a few enhancements on both Joomla 1.5 and Joomla 1.6+ versions. Now a new and improved version is available for download.

Here’s a list of changes:

1. Changed “Your application is pending approval. Meanwhile you can add your banner/ads.” to: “Your advertising account application is pending approval. As soon as we approve your application, we will send you an email. In the meantime, you can still add banners and campaigns.”
2. Removed the notice “You have no campaigns available for this banner type/size. Please add a new campaign here.”
3. Removed the notice on campaign creation: “There are no banners available for this campaign. Banner/Ad requirements:..”
4. Placed “Add Banners” link on campaigns that have no banners.
5. Instead of using the .button class for all the buttons, we added our own classes. The Cancel button is now in light gray and the Action button in orange so that the user can easily see what to do next.
6. Changed “Select the ad type” to “Below you will find a list of the available ad types. Click on the one you’d like to add to continue”
7. Made the “Home” button smaller and added a link to “Advertiser Dashboard.”

Placed "Add Banners" link on campaigns that have no banners.

Instead of using the .button class for all the buttons, we added our own classes. The Cancel button is now in light gray and the Action button in orange so that the user can easily see what to do next.

You can download the latest version here. Enjoy the improved Ad Agency and stay tuned for more usability improvements soon.

Fridge Magnets!

The Joomla team  recently announced Joomla 1.7 is now stable for live sites.  This new version fixes a variety of issues with Joomla 1.6 as well as introduces the ability to upgrade to future versions from within the Administrator panel.

No more uploading via FTP, hooray!

This marks the first step towards a upgrade system that is similar to WordPress, thus making your life as an administrator easier.  The Joomla 1.7 release does not bring a huge amount of changes, but it is a vital step in the right direction for Joomla and it’s new release schedule.  In this article I will cover what is new, if you need to upgrade, and why I used such an ugly graphic for this post.

What are the newest and biggest features?

• One click upgrades – Starting from Joomla 1.6 you can upgrade your install by going to:  Extensions -> Extension Manager -> Update -> Find updates.
• Faster release cycles - Short term releases will be changing every six months and only supported for one month after the next release.
• Multi-Language improvements – Associate menu items to different languages.

There are a variety of other minor changes that you can review on the official Joomla 1.7 page.

Thank you Joomla

Do I really need to upgrade?

Depending on what version of Joomla your site(s) are on now, this may be the last time you have to do a “scary upgrade”.   Scary meaning doing it all via FTP and hoping you didn’t miss any upgrade instructions or caveats.  Upgrading is really easy since J1.6, so this shouldn’t be a huge deal.

It’s also important to note that Joomla 1.6 will go end of life in August 2011.   That means no more security updates or patches or fixes for vulnerabilities.  If your site get’s hacked 6 months from now due to some kid developing some obscure technique, you will only have yourself to blame–not Joomla.  Upgrade them sites!

I am on Joomla 1.5.  How do I do it?

There is no upgrade path from J1.5 to J1.6 or J1.7.   You will have to migrate.  There are a variety of changes from J1.5 to newer versions including changes to tables and the ACL (access control list) so a migration is the only way.  If you are comfortable with migrating from different Joomla releases you probably have a system in place.   If not, you can try out this extension.  I personally have not tried it, but it seems pretty straightforward.  Take all the usual precautions and backup your databases and files before doing something like this.   Try it on your development site first and test the process before doing it on a live site.

I am on Joomla 1.6.  How do I do it?

It’s easy peasy if you already made the leap to Joomla 1.6.   Just go to: Extensions -> Extension Manager -> Update -> Find updates.

What’s up with that ugly Joomla image you used in the beginning of the article?

Kids refrigerator magnets are cute, cheap and fun.  They also stick to anything metal.  Slapping some fridge magnets on a whiteboard or something metal or *gasp*, your actual fridge is a good way to nag yourself that this upgrade is very important and needs to be done soon.

Do I have to worry about extensions breaking?

As with any upgrade there is always the potential for things to break.  You should never do a upgrade or migration without some tested and proven way to revert back to a working site if it all goes pear shaped.   The changes from J1.6 to J1.7 are pretty minor, but ther are so many extensions that do so many things, it’s hard to make a blanket statement.

In regards to iJoomla products, we have fully converted iJoomla AdAgency, iJoomla SEO and iJoomla Surveys as of July 28th 2011.

How about you?

Do you have any tips or tricks I didn’t cover? Let us know in the comments, we would love to hear from you.

Giles Fabris of DiehardCustomers.com is a good friend, a business coach and a customer service guru. He’s also a new Joomla 1.5 user who has been working with the CMS for the past three months. He is a typical Joomla end-user: a business owner, not a developer. I had just one task for him: to place a module on the left side of the template. I wanted to do Usability Testing with him to find out how easy (or hard) it is to accomplish such a basic task with Joomla 1.7.

Here’s the usability testing video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Usability Testing Summary:

• Giles can see that some module position names make some sense but they are not clear. He thinks that by clicking those modules he will see more detail about each position. He is surprised to find that the module position changes when he clicks.
• I asked him how he can find the position that goes on the left.
• He decides to open the Template Manager.
• He is confused by the two stars on two different templates. He is not sure which is the default template and he doesn’t understand the difference between the “site” and “administrator” templates.
• He opens the site default template but is confused because it doesn’t look like the old one. He can no longer find the the “preview” button and thinks that by clicking on the “view sites” he will see the positions.
• He tries the admin template but that doesn’t help either.
• He decides to click the Help button but he is still not sure what the default template is.
• He tries to look at the template link, but only finds a page for information about the template.
• At this point, Giles said he would call me for help.
• He clicks the Help button again but doesn’t find it useful and says he is not expecting Joomla to be user-friendly.
• At this point he would give it five minutes then seek help from a Joomla professional.

Recommendations:

These issues are “low hanging fruits”: they’re obvious problems that are easy to fix.

1. Show only site templates by default. Users will see only one star for the default template, just like Joomla 1.5
2. Bring back the site preview with the positions feature, and place a link to it right where the user selects a module position.
   

   Place a link to the site preview with module positions right where the user selects a module position

3. Show a video tutorial inside the Help window.

I asked Giles to provide some last words about his usability experience. This is what he had to say:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Making Joomla more user-friendly should not be hard. It requires taking a few weeks off development to focus on usability testing and fixing the UI. Ninety percent of the usability issues that I found are very easy to fix. I will be performing more usability testing for Joomla 1.7 and hopefully the Joomla team will implement some of the recommendations.

What is your usability experience with Joomla 1.6 and Joomla 1.7?

Hey everybody,

I’ve worked out a sweet deal for you this week. From now ’til this Friday night at midnight, the next 30 customers who purchase our iJoomla SEO extension ($99) will get a free copy of the amazing new EasyBlog Blogging software for Joomla (Community Edition) by StackIdeas. That’s a $45 value…FREE!

EasyBlog is, in my opinion, the best blogging solution available for Joomla (we love it so much, we use it on our Ad Agency blog). It’s powerful, supports multiple bloggers on your website, includes built-in ratings & comments (Facebook comments, RS Comments & JomComment support); is gorgeously styled…and the best part, it’s FREE when you purchase iJoomla SEO

Do you want to be a search engine magnet? iJoomla SEO will optimize your Joomla site for search engines easily AND monitor how your keywords are doing on Google. iJoomla SEO (for Joomla 1.5, 1.6 & 1.7) will help you climb search results quickly, easily and with minimum effort. All the SEO pros are using it, shouldn’t you be?

SPECIAL OFFER: Buy iJoomla SEO, get EasyBlog extension for Joomla- FREE!
A $45 value–first 30 SEO customers!

But wait, there’s more. With your purchase of SEO, I will also send you over $25 in free discount coupons for some of the most popular 3rd party Joomla extensions out there–deals you won’t find anywhere else.

Coupon #1: Buy SEO, get a coupon good for a FREE copy of ‘corePHP’s’ popular Youtube module for Joomla.  Easily post Youtube videos on your Joomla 1.5-1.7 website in a variety of sizes & colors AND from a variety of authors, channels and playlists with this awesome module. * Your coupon will be included in the SEO installer package.

Coupon #2: Buy SEO, get a coupon good for 20% OFF hwdMediaShare’s Pro Subscription package. hwdVideoShare lets you turn your static Joomla 1.5-1.7 website into a complete video & media-sharing destination–just like Youtube & vimeo. If you want to attract and keep traffic to your Joomla website…this will extension will help you do that. * Your coupon will be included in the SEO installer package.

If you need better Google page ranking and would like free Joomla software & coupons, too, then you should grab this deal before it’s too late. This offer expires Friday night (July 29) at midnight, or whenever the 30th SEO customer has purchased (whichever comes first). Don’t delay and grab your copy of iJoomla SEO today!

iJoomla LMS is now Guru

Guru Logo

In a last minute change before the grand release, we’re giving iJoomla LMS a new name: Guru. Why Guru?  Because everybody is a guru at something. Everyone is an expert at what they do best, and everybody has knowledge that others would love to possess.

And they’ll pay for that knowledge.

Guru allows anyone to create online courses and generate revenue automatically. Sounds good, doesn’t it? Sign up to be a beta tester and get more information, including some brand new screenshots, here:

http://guru.ijoomla.com/

We expect to release Guru beta by the end of this month.

Coming soon! iJoomla Learning Center

Guru’s new Learning Center is almost ready for launch. The Center will contain quality courses about not just Joomla but also SEO, web design, business, social media and more!

We want this Learning Center to be the ultimate resource for anyone doing web development in general and working with Joomla in particular.

iJoomla Learning Center

Are you a Guru? We want YOU!

Are you a guru in any of the following topics? Apply to be a teacher on our learning center and make money from your knowledge.

We’re looking for gurus in the following topics:

• Any Joomla Extensions (JomSocial, VirtueMart, RS Forms, etc.)
• Social media
• Web design
• Marketing
• Business
• Graphic design

And any other relevant topic. Languages other than English are also welcome.

If you’d like to join our team of gurus, do send me (merav@ijoomla.com) your course tree and a link to a sample video tutorial. Only serious applications will be considered.

Be a Guest Author on our Blog

Do you specialize in a topic related to web design or business? We are looking for guest authors for the iJoomla blog. Each post on our blog gets 1000-10,000 hits, so this is a great opportunity to win exposure for your website or services. The post can be anything from tutorials and new ideas to interviews, tips, extensions reviews, news and more.

If you think you fit, please send me (merav@ijoomla.com) an original blog post that hasn’t published anywhere and a short bio of you. If your post is accepted, I’ll get right back to you.

Ad Agency for Joomla 1.6 Coming Soon

We are currently testing the Ad Agency for Joomla 1.6. It’s all going smoothly so far, and we’re hoping to release a beta version within two weeks.