Jacob Stansky, XOPandora

Jacob, tell me a little bit about you and how you came to create XO Pandora.

I am the lead web developer / designer / programmer at XO Pandora. I graduated college in 2000 as an English major and had no clue what I wanted to do with my future. One of my last classes before I graduated was an advertising class. Completely in love with this course, I pursued a way into the ad world. Long story short, the process was go to ad school, get an internship, shop your portfolio for a job.

I went back to school and just before graduating, had a huge distaste for the ad agency world. One of my last classes before graduating a second time required an online portfolio. Making the website reinvigorated a love of computers I had as a kid. Instead of advertising, I forged ahead with pursuing a life of online production.

What made you choose Ad Agency?

I choose Ad Agency for a few reasons

• I met you at a CMS expo. I like knowing there are real people behind real Joomla products.
• It had a thorough landing page explaining the component features.
• It had a video. I like to see what a component can do before I promise it to a client.
• The modules. A component needs good modules.
• Geo-targeting. A major feature that beats others.
• And to be honest, Google DFP does not play well with Joomla and there are no components, modules or plugins out there to mesh this.

How long have you been using Ad Agency?

More than two years.

How much money have you and your clients generated from Ad Agency so far?

This is tough to tell because the primary client that uses Ad Agency offers page ads to his major sponsors. These deals range from $5,000 to $100,000. The sales team throws the banner ads into the package. We recently calculated that a $5 CPM on a niche topic website would garner about $600,000 for the client if broken into four geo regions.

What have you found to be the elements for creating a successful advertising program?

A successful program needs four elements.

1) The Map - You need to create a workflow and financial outline map of the service as a whole. Know every step that you’re asking the potential advertiser to go through and then map out every possible scenario. This will outline all the areas you need to set-up.

The first workflow is your perfect system. The following workflows will show what happens if there is a technical problem, when an advertiser requests a report, and so on. This will then highlight all the areas you need to put in place for a sales step. It also forces you to budget time for all scenarios or put personnel in place to manage various workflow scenarios such as tech support, customer service, etc.

2) The Sale – You need to know the full revenue matrix beyond the simple logistics. How much inventory can you handle? How many impressions you can deliver with that inventory? How you’re going to increase impressions for your inventory in multiple timelines (six month, one year, two years, etc.) What’s the industry average for the pricing models you’ll use, and so on.

When you know everything about your revenue matrix you can make your sales tools stronger and simpler.

The next step is to take the info and present it in a simple and modern designed way on a special landing page. You should also produce a single-sheet in PDF format. Not all sales will come from crossing traffic. You’ll network along the way and you’ll want to give someone a digital file or hard copy “sales one-sheet” immediately.

3) Management – The system will demand babysitting. You need dedicated time available to get on top of situations immediately. The manager should ensure that the checkout process is simple and working. He or she will need to answer pre-sales questions and be an account rep for all the advertisers. The manager should also have several protocols to follow that were outlined in the map process, such as marketing outreach, client contact, sales follow-ups, and customer service surveys. Each advertiser should be taken care of individually from start to finish.

The manager will provide advertiser analytics upon request and by protocol after seven days and after the campaign ends. The manager should also steer growth on the timeline outlined in the map phase.

4) Tech Support – Don’t just have a tech support structure in place; advertise it as a major strong point. Make such services clearly advertised on your sales landing page:  ”live chat” support, FAQ section, Forum / Knowledge base, direct support e-mail, support ticket system and so on. People need to know that their investment is going into something solid. It makes them feel good and have positive expectations in the opportunity you’re providing.

If you want to make real money, you have to have every situation outlined and know how long each situation will require. If your production or management time is too stretched, your profit will be minor and you’ll be doing a ton of work for little pay. If you realize that the project could potentially overwhelm you because of time restrictions — if you have a day job or you’re a single mom, etc. — don’t do it! Go willy-nilly into an online advertising program and you will lose time, money and relationships with advertisers. If you need to put a manager in place while you do other things, compare the revenue to the costs.

An online advertising program is a not a turnkey operation. A $300 component does not mean you don’t have a $1,500 start-up cost. The Ad Agency component is only one piece of the opportunity. It is the keystone piece but only a single piece overall.

What is your preferred package type? Do you opt for impressions, clicks or a fixed date?

For sponsorship packages it’s fixed date. For general revenue, we prefer CPM.

How many people work on the sales force of the advertising program?

For my major client there are two people. I’m the manager of the program and we have one sales person pushing the banner sales.

How do you find the advertisers?

It’s a niche industry so going to the industry rags to find advertisers is easy. The client is also a beacon in the industry so people call all the time to inquire. And they put out extensive marketing and media kits to a lot of related industry businesses.

What is the minimum traffic one needs in order to sell advertising on their site?

Probably about 25,000 visits  per month. I mean you can sell a banner ad to someone for $10 per month with only 100 clicks if you want. If it’s niche, it can be anything. You have to value your time to manage the ads and the system against the revenue you pull in. You also need to balance impressions against inventory. Too few impressions with too many ads is a disaster. I feel around 25,000 monthly page visits will give your inventory a fair shot at 5,000 to 7,500 impressions per month. At $7.50 per 1,000 impressions you might make a few bucks.

Do you use the remote feature to show ads on other sites?

Not right now. This would require me to have another Ad Manager in-house which would require hourly pay and would have to be justified by revenue. With no time to develop this in-house, I can’t establish the need for this feature yet. The worse thing I can do is play with features just because they are there. Time is the enemy of curiosity.

How do you use geo-targeting to generate more sales?

For me, this is easy because our primary client has events in fourteen states across the US. We can sell east, central and west coast advertising, and the full scope of the company’s fans are exposed to relevant ads. There are national brands that go into all three regions, and we sell a nice three-play package for this. We make three times the revenue on the same module area by selling the area to all three regions.

What is the best way to display your advertising program on the website? What should be there?

This is best answered by standing on the shoulders of giants. Check out these guys:

• http://aws.amazon.com/free/
• http://mailchimp.com/features/
• http://mailchimp.com/pricing/

Hundreds of companies have great methods of promoting their services. The two keys:

1. Make it look real good. People trust well-designed things just like people like a well-dressed salesperson.
2. Make it simple but cover the basics: The “how it works,” the “how much” and the “what it is.”

What do you think about social targeting?

Social targeting is like anything else in advertising: it’s a numbers game. Go where the numbers are and you’ll take away a percentage of them to convert into revenue.

How do you determine the price of advertising packages?

We shop the industries that are comparable to our clients that offer similar advertising. We check out Google AdWords and then we evaluate the value of the page content of the client’s site. We take these considerations into account and run that value basis against our site traffic and available impression counts.

Thank you Jacob!

If you just want to try the product, without committing to a whole year’s subscription, now you can simply get the product for up to 70% off!

Sounds good, right?

How were we able to get the prices down so low?

The main issue with selling products for a low price is support and development. They’re not cheap. Our team of developers are all full-time professionals who do this for a living. The expense is significant. Take away support and upgrades for people who don’t need them though, and the price can go right down.

So we came up with three easy plans:

1. “Try it out!” Plan

This is a great plan for those who want to simply try the product without a big initial investment. This plan is highly discounted (up to 70% off original price but comes with no VIP support). You can download the product once and the subscription expires. You won’t get upgrades after that first download, but you can always renew your subscription later to get more updates and VIP support.

2. “Standard” Plan

This plan gives you two downloads: the original download and one extra upgrade. Before you upgrade you can look at the change log to see what’s new and decide if you wish to upgrade now or wait for a later version.

3. “Pro” Plan

This is the best value plan. You get access to our VIP support, plus a full six months of unlimited downloads or upgrades. If you’d like access to our developers for support—or if you like to keep your extensions always up to date—this is the right plan for you.

Note: our one-year plan is also available on the shopping cart when checking out, for those who want it.

Pay Only for the Support You Need

With this new pricing model, you can pay less if you don’t need access to higher level of support. So what is the difference between VIP Support and Forum Support?

VIP Support (Ticketing System):

VIP Support gives you access to the product developers who can:

• Login to your website to identify issues and fix them;
• Correct minor design and compatibility issues;
• Address any other issues.

Forum Support:

Forum Support lets you:

• Ask “How to…” questions;
• Get advice about the best way to use the product;
• Ask any other questions that don’t require logging in to your website.

Note: Developers do not access the forum to answer questions. They only give support via our VIP Support ticketing system.

Sounds interesting?

Check out these discounted rates:

• Guru – Starting at $97 for the “Try it Out” plan
• Publisher – Starting at $77 for the “Try it Out” plan
• iJoomla SEO – Starting at $47 for the “Try it Out” plan
• iJoomla DigiStore – Starting at $47 for the “Try it Out” plan
• iJoomla Ad Agency – Starting at $47 for the “Try it Out” plan
• iJoomla Surveys – Starting at $37 for the “Try it Out” plan
• iJoomla SideBars – Starting at $37 for the “Try it Out” plan

Let’s try it out!

This is definitely a big change for us and we are giving it a try for a few months. If it works well and customers like it, we’ll keep it. If not, we’ll revert back to the old model so grab your product while the prices last.

What about Joomla 3.x?

We are currently working on converting two products to Joomla 3.x, including full bootstrap and responsive design:

• Ad Agency – Read about it here.
• Guru – Read about it here.

Once these two are released, we’ll move on to:

• Publisher
• iJoomla SEO
• DigiStore

then

• iJoomla Surveys
• iJoomla SideBars

Converting to Joomla 3.x is not easy or fast! It will take us some time but we will get it done, just like we did the migration from 1.x to 1.5 and then from 1.5 to 2.5. Hopefully, this will be the last big migration we’ll ever have to do.

Here are some screen captures from Guru:

Integrations with JomSocial

You probably already know that we took over the JomSocial project at the beginning of the year. This has been quite an undertaking and lots of fun. You can read what we’ve been doing on the JomSocial blog.

Since JomSocial is now one of our products, you will be seeing much tighter integrations with our other products, specifically Guru and possibly Publisher. Ad Agency is already fully integrated. What other integration ideas do you have? Post them on our blog. We’d love to hear them.

This is it for this update. Thanks for being a great subscriber and talk to you again soon.

Comments? Please post them on below, I’d love to read them!

At the last Joomla World Conference in November I had the pleasure of meeting Marc Gaffan, one of the founders of Incapsula. Marc gave a great presentation about Incapsula’s solution. You can see it below. I’m going to give you a little review and then move to the interview with Marc.

The concept

Incapsula behaves like a firewall, protecting your site from all sorts of bad stuff like cross scripting, SQL injections and more.

Incapsula behaves like a firewall, protecting your site from all sorts of bad stuff like cross scripting, SQL injections and more. They have a large, dedicated team of security experts whose only job is to protect your site. They’ll even scan your pages for backdoors and report back to you. Since the average small business can rarely afford even one security person, that’s a great benefit.

And the reports Incapsula delivers are really eye-opening. You will be stunned at the number of hacking attempts that happen on a regular basis against your site, mainly by robots but also by humans.

Incapsula is not hacker-proof

You should know, though, even if your site is behind Incapsula, it’s not 100% protected. You still have to do your due diligence. You still have to close security holes both on your server configuration and on anything you install on top of Joomla. (I’ll include some resources at the end).

The backend of Incapsula has a bunch of tools to help you get the most out of your subscription and to control the alerts you receive.

The difficulty of set-up varies

Setting up Incapsula can be challenging — or easy — depending on the complexity of your site. You may have to tweak your email accounts, FTP and get a new SSL (it’s included free with your membership). It might take you a little bit of time to get everything up running smoothly again. Incapsula will send you a number of emails that explain the steps you need to take. I recommend that you read them all carefully and follow the instructions.

Marc Gaffan, Co-founder, Incapsula

And now over to Marc Gaffan:

Marc, what is Incapsula?

Incapsula is a cloud-based service that protects and accelerates websites. Through a simple DNS change, your website’s traffic is seamlessly routed through Incapsula’s globally-distributed network of high-powered servers.

Incoming traffic is intelligently profiled in real-time, blocking even the latest Web threats: from sophisticated SQL injection attacks to scrapers, malicious bots, intruding comment spammers and thwarting multi-Gigabit DDoS attacks.

Meanwhile, outgoing traffic is accelerated and optimized with Incapsula’s global CDN for faster load times, keeping welcome visitors speeding through.

What made you start Incapsula?

Until recent years, website security and acceleration was accessible only to the big companies, those with financial resources and IT departments capable of handling the configuration and management of appliance-based solutions.

New cloud technology that has emerged over the last few years has allowed services like Incapsula to create affordable and easy-to-set-up website security and acceleration solutions. This is definitely a growing need by SMB’s today who have to make sure that their sites are always online and protected but do not have the time or money to handle it themselves.

What are the top three benefits of Incapsula?

1. Website Security – Instant Virtual Patching:

Incapsula’s unique bot detection technology and Web Application Firewall technology protect Joomla websites from intruding comment spam, fake registrations, site scrapers and other threats. Leveraging a unique crowd-sourcing security model and an extensive real-time knowledge base of website attack patterns, new vulnerabilities are quickly detected and virtual patches are released to mitigate these threats.

2. Website Performance – Global CDN & Optimizer:

Incapsula’s global CDN improves website performance by caching and optimizing its content, and delivering it directly from the Internet’s backbone. On average, websites using Incapsula are 40% faster and consume 50% less bandwidth.

3.Advanced Analytics – Traffic, Performance and Threat Statistics:

Incapsula’s dashboard includes live stats for all website traffic, including human visitors, bots, performance statistics and detailed threats reports.

What does your Joomla extension do? Do I need to install it to use Incapsula?

Any Joomla site owner can sign up to Incapsula through our website and set up their website through our online management console.

Our newest Joomla component enables site owners to do all of that and manage their security and performance directly from their Joomla admin without using the management console.

What are some of the unique challenges Joomla users have when it comes to security?

I think that anyone using open source CMS platforms is exposed to many security vulnerabilities that are detected from time to time on different versions. The extensions installed on CMS websites also suffer from vulnerabilities, so users finds themselves in constant concern that their website may be exposed to different threats.

Obviously patches and new Joomla versions are released to overcome vulnerabilities, but it requires the user’s time and efforts each time a patch needs to be installed or a version upgrade is required.

Can Joomla users protect themselves from hackers without Incapsula by using Joomla tools like RS Firewall? What added benefits does Incapsula have that those tools lack?

Joomla users defend their websites by using different extensions such as RS Firewall, but Incapsula’s advantage is the fact that it’s an external service that constantly updates with the newest threats and makes sure the website is protected at all times. In addition, you need to remember that traffic to the protected website is routed first through Incapsula’s servers. This means that attacks are stopped at Incapsula’s side and never even get to the protected website. That is something which is unique to Incapsula.

In addition, Incapsula provides a PCI DDS Compliant WAF, which is the highest widely recognized standard for Web Application Firewalls.

And last, remember that Incapsula doesn’t provide websites just with security but also accelerates websites with our CDN and optimization technology

I feel like your security team works for me, which is cool. What can you tell me a about their work routine and function?

Incapsula keeps a dedicated team of security engineers 24/7 who monitor all the websites under our protection. Once a new threat is detected, we learn the threat and immediately deploy a new security rule protecting from it. This is something you get only with a cloud-based service like ours.

Do you ever hire hackers?

No, we do not.

How do the people in your security team work to find new vulnerabilities?

In three ways:

- We get information from our community members who alert us about new vulnerabilities that

they have heard of or encountered.

- We monitor the thousands of websites under our protection and detect attempts

to exploit vulnerabilities in these websites.

- We proactively look at all the online resources where you can find information about new

vulnerabilities: forums, blogs, etc.

What are the top countries for hackers?

Well, the bigger the country the bigger the number of hackers, so you can see lots of hackers from China, the U.S., Russia, U.K., etc. But you can also see lots of hackers from smaller countries as South Korea, Israel, Denmark and more.

The feature that surprised me the most was the spam blocking. We used to get dozens of spam posts on our forum. Since we moved to Incapsula, we only got one, which makes us very happy. How does the spam blocking work?

We developed a unique bot classification and detention technology which is based on several layers of protection and on our existing and ever-growing bot signature database. When filtering human visitors from bots (and good bots from bad bots) we will look at signatures, HTTP headers and even behavior patterns. We will cross-verify these signals to gain an initial “first impression” and when still not 100 percent sure, we will perform a series of seamless tests (i.e. JS challenge and Cookie challenge). This process will accurately identify 99.9 percent of all bots and our users can turn up their Security setting to provide CAPTCHA challenges to the remaining 0.01 percent. Upon identification, every new bot signature is aggregated across the network to benefit all users, who become instantly immune, even from the latest threats.

It almost seems like fighting with hackers is pointless because they will always be a step ahead of us. That’s why I believe Incapsula and similar services will become the standard for websites in the not-so-far future. Do you see a future where every website out there is protected by a service like yours? Is it even plausible? Will it make your service stronger or weaker if most websites use it?

That’s actually a very good question. Obviously today a website owner can’t really keep up with all the different types of attacks that emerge every day, and we do already see millions of websites using services like Incapsula. This trend will only grow over the next few years.

From our point of view, the more websites we protect the smarter we get and the better our website protection becomes. Our system constantly detects bots and threats that arise against any website on our network. This means that Incapsula continually learns and that every site, regardless of size, makes the system smarter.

What words of advice do you have for Joomla users when it comes to security?

Accept the fact that the days when installing patches every time a new vulnerability arises are over. Website owners simply do not have the capacity today to monitor new threats and make sure their websites are protected from them. Use security services as Incapsula which do the work for you. As one of our customers put it: “Incapsula is like hiring a System Administrator that never sleeps.”

Thank you Marc!

Marc’s Presentation:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdkdr398xfk[/youtube]

***

To find out more about Incapsula, visit http://www.incapsula.com/. To learn more about their Joomla extension visit this page. You can find more details about their Joomla extension here.

Here are some security resources:

Joomla Security Check List: http://docs.joomla.org/Security_Checklist

Security Checklist/Getting Started: http://docs.joomla.org/Security_Checklist/Getting_Started

It’s been a great year at iJoomla.com, and it’s going to get even better real soon with the release of our newest extension Publisher and a few other surprises are coming soon too!

What’s YOUR New Year Resolution?

If Making More Money is one of them, then let me tell about our 3 Money-Making extensions, they will help you make more money from your site as fast as today!

• Guru:  Start selling online courses! Online learning is HOT HOT HOT right now! Just ask the people at Lynda.com who make over 70 Million Dollars annually selling online courses! Jump on this bandwagon today!
• Ad Agency:  Start selling advertising today! Forget Ad Sense! Our Ad Agency customers make a lot more money than those who use Ad Sense, don’t let Google make all the money! Just ask Jacob who made $10,000 by investing $147, no kidding!

• DigiStore: Start selling digital products today! It comes with 68 eBooks you can start selling NOW.  This is probably the only shopping cart in the world that come with products you can already sell! Wow! DigiStore will also be responsive soon, so that you can sell to mobile customers too!

Take 20% OFF Before The End of The Year!

Buy any of these money-making extensions today and get 20% OFF!

• Guru – Save $60 (Now only $237)
• Ad Agency – Save $30 (Now only $117)
• DigiStore – Save $30 (No only $117)

Promo code: hello2013

Happy New Year!

Merav Knafo, CEO, iJoomla.com

I know you’ve been waiting for a long time. I know too that some of you have been waiting for Publisher to come out in order to migrate from Joomla 1.5 to Joomla 2.5. I understand and sympathize with you.

So where do we stand now?

It’s close, about 95 percent done.

I know… we’ve been saying this for months. All I can add is that when it comes to developing Joomla extensions, or any software for that matter, things can get complicated and unpredictable. Features that you expected to knock out in days get stuck for months. I wish I could predict every bump along the day and was able to give you a better estimate, but sometimes I just can’t.

That’s why I wanted to send this email to you today: to keep you in the loop and answer a few questions we’ve been getting.

So what’s left do?

This is what we’re working on:

• SEF functionality. This is crucial. Without it, you probably won’t be able to use Publisher on your site. There are quite a few SEF solutions out there and we aim to support the majority of them. We will start with Core SEF, sh404 and SEF advanced.

• Adding media right inside the HTML editor. This is a new feature that we think will make a huge difference. We were all ready to go but when we tried it on the demo, we realized it was just too cumbersome. Those kind of discoveries can only happen after you actually use the product. The new approach though has proved more difficult than expected and is the main reason for the delay. It is the right move though, and will be worth the extra time.

• Testing. Once we have completed the SEF and the media additions, we’ll start another round of testing. We want to release Publisher as a beta with a minimal amount of bugs.

Will I have to pay even if I have a Magazine or News Portal license?

Yes. This isn’t an update. It’s a brand new product that has taken us over a year and a half to develop. None of our developers are volunteers and development has cost us an enormous amount. As much as we would love to give you all free access, this is not a plausible scenario if we want to stay in business and continue development for the long run. We do however plan to give you a significant discount!

So when will Publisher be released?

It looks like Publisher will be ready in January once we’ve added and tested the missing features described above.

Will Publisher have all the features of iJoomla Magazine/iJoomla News Portal?

And so much more! Publishers have been asking me for a while to combine the features of News Portal and Magazine, and that’s exactly what we’ve done — but in a much more elegant way. Publisher is completely tableless and the CSS is optimized and well created.

What are some of the new features of Publisher?

The main big feature is the ability for authors to submit and manage articles and media on the front end. We also have new media galleries, issues have drag-and-drop layouts, and much, much more.

Author cPanel:

Drag and Drop Layouts:

Media Galleries

Screenshot of one of our demo issues (Guardian style)

Is Publisher responsive?

At this time Publisher is not responsive but that will be one of our first tasks after it’s stable.

Will publisher be ready for Joomla 3.x?

Not right away. Most users still use Joomla 2.5 so that’s the version we’ll be supporting. However, once we make Publisher responsive, it will be relatively simple to create a version for Joomla 3.x

Will it support k2 and zoo?

Yes, both extensions will be fully supported. You will be able to use core Joomla articles, k2 or zoo inside your zones.

Can I see a demo?

Yes, you can see a demo of Publisher on our demo site

• Front end
• Admin

I hope this answers your questions! If you have any other questions, feel free to ask away on the Publisher forum.

Best Regards,

Are you still using Joomla 1.5?

Then you’re in for a treat!

Get ALL iJoomla products for Joomla 1.5 for 82% OFF!

Yes, that’s right… 82% OFF!

The regular price for all these products would be $1,113.

If you’re using Joomla 1.5, you can buy this special CRAZY Bundle for just $197. (That’s a saving of $916!)

Is that nuts? Pretty much. So grab it quick before the tequila wears off!

The rules for this promotion:

• Only Joomla 1.5 Products!
• NO refunds! No exceptions!
• NO upgrades or updates to newer versions. (What you buy is what you get! No new versions will be released and no bugs will  be fixed.)
• NO support! (If you think you will need our help, you can obtain a license for the full price here.)

This is an incredible deal if:

• You or your clients want to stay with Joomla 1.5 for a while.
• You think you can manage without support from us.
• You want to try our products for a minimal cost (The Joomla .5 versions are better but these more basic versions will give you a good idea of what our products can do for you.)

What’s included in this super crazy bundle that costs just $197?

• Guru  for Joomla 1.5 ($297 Value)
• iJoomla SEO for Joomla 1.5 ($147 Value)
• iJoomla Ad Agency for Joomla 1.5 ($147 Value)
• iJoomla DigiStore for Joomla 1.5($147 Value)
• iJoomla Magazine for Joomla 1.5($77 Value)
• iJoomla News Portal for Joomla 1.5($77 Value)
• iJoomla Search & Archive for Joomla 1.5($67 Value)
• iJoomla SideBars for Joomla 1.5($77 Value)
• iJoomla Surveys for Joomla 1.5($77 Value)

In short, just about everything you could need to build a beautiful, profitable Joomla site. (It almost makes you want to downgrade to Joomla 1.5, doesn’t it?)

This promo will only last 7 days. Don’t miss it!

This Bundle will not be available on our site after Tuesday, December 7th, this is a ONE TIME offer!

Best Regards,

So What is Responsive Web Design?

It must have happened to you. You open a web page on your mobile device and it looks all squashed and tiny. You constantly have to increase the size of the font and scroll left to right to read the content. It’s annoying.

That’s a site that isn’t using responsive design. However, if you go to a web page and find that everything is laid out perfectly with no need to scroll or resize, there is a good chance it’s using a responsive design.

When a website is responsive, the layout and/or content adapts to the size of screen on which it’s presented. A responsive website automatically changes to fit the device you’re reading it on.

Responsive design usually reacts to four kinds of screens: the widescreen desktop monitor; the smaller desktop (or laptop); the tablet; and the mobile phone.

Here’s a screenshot of one of the Joomla responsive templates from JoomlArt.com. As you can see on each device, the layout looks a little different. On every device though, the design looks great with no tiny text.

When a website is responsive, the layout and/or content adapts to the size of screen on which it’s presented. A responsive website automatically changes to fit the device you’re reading it on.

How Does Responsive Design Work?

Responsive design works by using @media queries to identify the size of the device screen and present a layout based on that size. It’s something you can test easily. Go to this page and drag the browser window to scale it down. You’ll see the layout change.

When Did the Responsive Design Trend Take Off?

According to Google Trends, people started searching for the term “Responsive Web Design” only in the middle of 2011 — so it’s all pretty new. But as more and more people use their mobile devices to access the Web, it’s been growing fast. Users expect a good experience whether they’re on an iPad, a Galaxy or a desktop. If they don’t get it, they’ll go elsewhere.

According to Google Trends, people started searching for the term “Responsive Web Design” only in the middle of 2011

Joomla Responsive Design

“Joomla Responsive” only turned up in Google Trends in the third quarter of this year so it’s even newer! But it is catching up very quickly, and every Web designer, template provider and extension developer needs to know what it means and how it works.

“Joomla Responsive” only turned up in Google Trends in the middle of this year

Responsive Joomla Templates

I’ve been looking at some of the most popular template clubs to see if they provide responsive templates. Most do. Some, like RocketTheme, have just started and offer only one responsive Joomla template. Others already have three or four responsive Joomla templates.

A surprisingly large number of Joomla extensions are also already responsive, most involving images and media.

Should I make my Joomla site responsive?

You may think at this point that the answer should be yes. But hold your horses! Sure, responsive design is a great idea… if you have a simple site without too many extensions. Those extensions can cause trouble if they’re not as responsive as the template. Just take a look at the example below. This is a responsive template with a video using the AllVideos plugin from Joomlaworks.gr. This plugin doesn’t add the videos in a responsive way… although there is a way to do it.

Even though the template is responsive, the video plugin is not and it doesn’t display properly on a mobile device.

If you want a responsive Joomla site, every front end extension you use has to be responsive. It’s going to take the Joomla development community a bit of time to catch up with that.

At iJoomla we plan to dedicate the rest of this year, and much of next year, to making all of our extensions responsive.  We’ll start with iJoomla DigiStore, our Joomla eCommerce solution. (Imagine a responsive shopping cart — now that’s sweet!) Then we’ll move to Guru, our Joomla LMS, so that students can view their lessons easily on their iPads or iPhones or whatever device they may be using.

Once you have both a responsive Joomla template and responsive front end extensions, you’ll have a real responsive Joomla site.

And in the Meantime?

Until all your extensions are responsive, you can use any of the other Joomla mobile solutions:

• WeeverApps will create a slick app of your website’s content. It’s cool but does have a few issues which the company is working on. WeeverApps also has a very limited support to third party extensions, but it’s great if you have a simple site with mainly text content.

• Mobile Joomla will display your Joomla site differently depending on the device. I tried to use it and had quite a few problems. We’re trying to make it work but it’s hard going. I’ll let you know how we get on.

• Some template clubs have a built-in mobile version. I believe this trend will fall away as soon as the responsive Joomla templates catch on.

So where are you when it comes to Joomla and responsive design? Are you using a responsive Joomla template yet? Let me know, I’d love to hear about it.

Update: We’ve just finished converting most of our products sites to responsive design. Check out the following sites with your mobile device to see how it looks like:

• http://adagency.ijoomla.com/
• http://ecommerce.ijoomla.com/
• http://guru.ijoomla.com/
• http://helpdesk.ijoomla.com/
• http://seo.ijoomla.com/

Andrew J. Holden, Chief Experience Officer (CXO)

Tell us a bit about your background

I certainly never thought I’d be developing mobile apps with Joomla!

I was a community organizer in the U.S. before I moved to Canada and launched a small web design company which exclusively served community for not for profits and renewable energy startups in 2004. I actually learned web design ‘in reverse’ using the early versions of Mambo, which as you know, became Joomla!

Having a free open-source web site platform to work with and the support of Joomla!’s amazing volunteer community was everything in those days. I have an article at Joomla! Magazine that’s basically about how I went from a total newbie to developer in a very short period of time.

How was Weever Apps born and by whom?

Our lead programmer Rob Porter and I were very frustrated with the ‘mobile problem’ in 2010. Native, ‘app store apps’ feel great but were far too expensive, technical and platform-limited for our not for profit and startup clients to afford.

Yet, we understood early on that the future is mobile and the organizations we worked with would need a solution immediately. That proved out – today there’s more mobile connected devices that people on earth and at least half of all local searches are on mobile devices.

So we felt stuck! We explored mobile plugins, responsive CSS techniques, etc – but nothing gave us the mobile-aware, touch-aware and “contextual” mobile experience we wanted to provide. Ultimately we found we were just making smaller versions of desktop web sites, which isn’t ideal for a goal-oriented mobile solution.

And we didn’t like that our clients could be ‘shut out’ of the app store due to political or personal reasons – when a handful of companies dominate the (mobile) web it’s not great for web democracy or open source, in our opinion.

So we took a walk. We spent two days hiking the Bruce Trail in Northern Ontario, Canada and talking about how we could solve this problem for us and for our clients. (Photos here).

We came back with a plan to create an “app builder” for Joomla! that would allow non-technical users to create and maintain apps. It would be free and it would do more than replicate a desktop site, but also allow for a lot of new social media interaction on twitter, photos from flickr, etc – that’s Weever Apps!

It’s been almost two years since then. Our invention caught the eye of some local successful business people and we found investment and built a team. While we’re not exclusive to Joomla! anymore (WordPress too now, custom and Drupal coming), it’s still our home and ‘first release’ platform.

Tell us a bit about your team?

We’re fortunate to have about 10 core team members in programming, marketing and custom development, which supports a large set of ‘resellers’ around the world. We’ve seen thousands of apps built in about 60 countries. Our app-framework is available in about 15 languages so far.

Weever Apps Team

What’s your business model?

We have a free version for Joomla! and WordPress sites which includes basic app features like social media streams, content, launch screens, qr codes, and quite a bit more. Our pro version is $10/month and includes ‘GeoTagger’, our plugin which creates a GPS-enabled mobile map(s) of articles in Joomla!. Pro also includes more advanced signup forms and other marketing integrations.

We also have a Premium / Reseller version at $40/month which web design companies and site owners use to fully rebrand the app as their own solution, removing a ‘powered by’ message when the app launches for mobile visitors to their web site. That’s where we see most of our sales.

I believe you’re the first Joomla company to get funding. How did you make that happen?

There were a few factors. We had the support of the Hamilton, Ontario, “Innovation Factory” which serves as a business incubator and taught us how to pitch for investment and really put together a strategy for the company, not just a strategy for creating fun new technology. We’re in a former steel town here and the city really needs new businesses to thrive. So we had the support of the business and larger civic community from day one in terms of introductions, training and more.

There’s hundreds of ‘how to get your startup funded’ articles out there but I’d say the deciding factor is that the potential funders we spoke to saw that we really, really wanted to change things for mobile and we weren’t going to let up on that. We had solid advisors and also took the approach that we were looking for more business experience to help us create a great team. I think being honest about our shortfalls was another important factor.

Do you think other Joomla companies should seek funding, and if yes, what’s your best advice?

That’s a tough one. There’s a strong case to be made for Bootstrapping and for building a ‘lean startup’ – the 37Signals blog has some great articles on that.

Overall I’d say it’s about how big you want to be. Creating a smaller product for a smaller set of customers in a niche market is a nice approach too and doesn’t require funding.

With Weever, you make an HTML5 “Web App” – that is that *one* app which works for all popular touch phones and tablets. A Weever HTML5 Web App also launches instantly for mobile visitors to a desktop site, according to the preference of the site owner.

So we have a big and kind of crazy goal – deliver a mobile solution that makes the app store model mostly obsolete by creating something that launches instantly, updates instantly, is affordable and works for every customer. So there was no question for us on seeking funding.

You also won a TV competition, tell us about that?

Lions Lair

Have you seen ‘Dragon’s Den‘? It’s a reality TV show/contest in the US where people pitch their business ideas to potential investors. We were on a more local, Canadian show called “Lion’s Lair” which has a similar format.

It was quite an experience. Partly because it’s strange being on camera but also because the format is that you go in front of experienced, insightful and very successful business people and have to prove you belong there too.

We practiced and practiced and it paid off. We won the top prize and $50,000 in startup resources.

How many apps were created with Weever Apps?

It’s in the tens of thousands now. Most apps tend to be simple and built for small businesses that want to generate leads via a click-to-call number, blogs or not for profits. We’ve seen quite a few tourism maps and other kinds of mobile directories made as well.

What % of apps are created with Joomla vs. wordpress or other CMS?

They’re mostly Joomla! since that was our first release and our only plugin for the first six months or so, although WordPress is growing pretty quickly now. We also have an open API where we’re seeing a fair amount of custom development for existing corporate/enterprise databases, new services, new CMS’s and other needs.

We’ve had some great support from the Joomla! development community as of late, both internal from the leadership team but also with developers like StackIdeas using our API to make their plugins (in this case, EasyBlog) compatibile with a mobile app.

Some template clubs have mobile support. What’s the difference between doing it that way and using Weever apps?

There’s a *lot* of differences – so many it’s hard to know where to start.

Most mobile sites are a reflection of a desktop solution – which means that the mobile context usually isn’t recognized and mobile marketing isn’t much of a consideration. That’s a missed opportunity in a changing web where more than half of all local searches are on mobile devices.

The key difference is that the user experience is actually made for mobile and is made to drive mobile *results*.

Moving through the app ‘feels’ like shuffling a deck of cards – not tapping and waiting for pages to load. There’s a big and obvious click-to-call and ‘share this on twitter, google+, facebook’ buttons in every app. Mobile maps and nearest-to-me pages ping the GPS and deliver *relevant* information instantly.

It’s not just a ‘read this’ solution, it’s an opportunity to actually engage and interact with visitors, and that’s what apps are great at, of course. I’m a big fan of good CSS and mobile-first strategies – but apps are made to accomplish goals in a mobile context, and that’s what we build Weever Apps to do well.

Those are the finer user-experience points. In the bigger picture of things we think that recognizing that a ‘site’ is now just one location where an organization ‘lives’ on the web is important. So we don’t just integrate one web site’s content, but also allow for real-time streaming of flickr photos, youtube, vimeo channels, and *lots* of other wide social and web-integration. Our 2.0 release is coming out soon and includes some really cool stuff for tablet interactivity as well. You can see all our features here.

What’s your goal with Weever Apps?

Make the mobile/web more affordable, accessible and fair by “weeving” the best features of traditional apps and web sites together – and – ‘”weeving” an organization’s entire web presence into one focused, engaging mobile presentation. Thus the name, “Weever” – the ‘a’ was taken

What are some of your challenges?

It can be really tough introducing a almost completely new technology – we had a lot of trouble explaining that web-apps launch in the browser but can also install and go full-screen early on. And that one app can actually launch and work for all popular touch phones and tablets.

It took a lot of time for us to learn how to explain what HTML5 Web App technology is and what the marketing benefits are to people who had only ever thought of ‘apps’ as something that exists in the app store. Fortunately there’s been a surge in HTML5 Web-App adoption by big companies so that’s made that process a little easier.

When you combine that with a basic free product, it’s easy to spend too much time explaining what a technology is and too little time making it better. So we learned that we had to restrict ticket-based support to our pro version, even if we didn’t want to initially.

Even though we see more benefit in an app that launches and updates instantly for *every* customer, we found that some businesses and larger organizations just had to be in the app store too. So we’re adding a ‘turn this web-app into a native (traditional, app-store) app’ solution with the forthcoming Weever 2.0 release.

What % of sites are mobile ready currently?

Believe or not, it’s still less than 20% and that’s for *any* mobile solution at all. Going mobile is tough for a lot of web designers and site owners. All the options out there can be overwhelming.

Another suprising stat – most people don’t realize that for all the buzz the iPhone generates, it’s actually less than 25% of the phones in use out there. Android averages anywhere from 50-60% globally so having a solution that works for every popular smartphone-OS is even more important these days.

What are some of your main future plans for Weever Apps?

I’m currently exploring a way to use Weever Apps to interact with a Joomla! site using Microsoft Kinnect, a motion-capture device, which is pretty fun. More immediately, we have a Weever Apps 2.0 release coming which includes a *lot* of new features.

We’ll be supporting deep-linking in the app for the first time, as well as a whole new set of templates and layouts to choose from on a per-feature, per-tab basis when building the app. We’ll also be allowing for native (app store) packaging and supporting a new of Joomla! extension integrations and new features in general for events, ticketing and lots more.

We have an ‘AppBuilder’ platform coming soon too. Some of our best early Joomla! site and app resellers told us they sometimes needed a place where they could build apps that aren’t attached to a desktop site, for use in specific mobile marketing campaigns. So we’re making that too!

Do you have any message for Joomla users who want to take their site mobile?

Try us! The basic version is free, building the app is non-technical and you’d surprised at how far you can go. But more than that, I’d say “focus on goals”. If you’re building an app for a restaurant, put the click-to-call area ‘up front’. If it’s a tourism map, make sure you distribute QR Codes in the relevant areas so folks can launch your app instantly on their phone. Mobile today represents a huge opportunity but only if you think through the context of what your mobile users actually want to see and deliver an engaging solution.

*and volunteer with Joomla! once in a while too

Thank you Andrew and good luck!

Thanks Merav!

Visit WeeverApps.com and get your site mobile today!

Get all these Joomla extensions for only $97

4th of July is here and we are celebrating BIG TIME with this amazing Joomla bundle!

For just $97, you will get $665 worth of Joomla goodies, wow!!!

Here’s what you get when you order before Monday, July 9th:

iJoomla SideBars

($77 value)

This ever popular, “must have” extension for Joomla allows you to add any type of sidebars right inside your articles, whether it’s a banner, an RSS feed, modules, related articles and more! You can stylize your sidebars in any of the default 12 styles or create your own!

What you get: You get the latest version of Sidebar; please note that you only get the download and no updates and support

Learn more about iJoomla SideBars here >>

2 Premium Templates by ThemeXpert

($30 value)

ThemeXpert have some very impressive high quality templates, they agreed to give away 2 of their premium templates: Infinity and sanity.

I have chekced these templates and they are super SLICK!

Infinity is perfect for online news site or a mazing, take a look at the Infinity demo:

http://demo.themexpert.com/joomla/infinity/

Sanity is perfect for pretty much any corporate website. Take a look at Sanity demo:

http://demo.themexpert.com/joomla/sanity/

What you get: Sanity and Infinity for Joomla 2.5. Please note that you don’t get any updates or support with these templates.

EasyBlog

($59 Value)

We LOVE EasyBlog! We use it on all our products sites. We love it because it’s powerful, easy to use and looks great, and you should see the new Joomla 2.5 version, it totally rocks!

Take a look and see how it looks like on our DigiStore blog

What you get: You get the latest version of EasyBlog, please note that you only get the download and no updates and support

Learn more about EasyBlog >>

EasyDiscuss

($35 Value)

EasyDiscuss is a great new way to engage your visitors! It’s like a mix between a forum and an “answers” site (like Yahoo Answers). We haven’t used it yet, but we plan to add it to all our products site very soon, can’t wait!

What you get: You get the latest version of EasyDiscuss, please note that you only get the download and no updates and support Take a look at the demo here >> Learn more about EasyDiscuss >>

Komento

($25 Value)

Komento is the easiest way to add comments feature on your articles and blogs! (Works great with EasyBlog) , it comes with some nifty features like: Geo Location, Category specific, stiky feature, email notifications and more. You can even migrate your comments from other 3rd party comment extensions!

What you get: You get the latest version of Komento, please note that you only get the download and no updates and support

Visit Komento demo >>

Learn more about Komento >>

RedComponents 12 Months Subscription

($92 Value)

In this subscription, you get access to the following extensions:

• redMEMBER
• redSHOP
• redBOOKING
• redEVENT
• redFORM
• redLIST
• redITEM
• redCOMPETITION
• jUpgrade

What you get: You get 12 month subscription to Redcomponent

Read more about this subscription plan >>

Broadcast – Social MediaSyncing Extension

($45 Value)

Broadcast is a Social Sync tool for your Joomla & JomSocial websites. With Broadcast, you can :

• Push the activities & updates from your site to various supported Social Networks
• Pull activities &updates from supported Social Networks to your site
• Import RSS Content Feeds into your site’s Activity stream.
• Users can use Broadcast to update all their Social Statuses from one place – your site!

What you get: You get the latest version of Broadcast for download. Please note that you don’t get any updates or support with this.

Learn more about BroadCast >>

3 Months Joomla Hosting from CloudAccess

($134 Value)

CloudAccess is a premium hosting provider for Joomla. With their Platform-as-a-Service, you get – hosting on premium equipment, managed backups, Joomla! phone support, email, and lots more

What you get:

• 3 Free Months of Joomla Hosting (Standard Hosting Plan – http://www.cloudaccess.net/pricing.html)
• Joomla installed and perfectly ready in the Cloud
• Free Daily Training Webinars
• Phone + Ticket Support for Joomla + Hosting
• Free Install of any JoomlaArt Template
• Free site Imports – with go live support.
• Free Setup of Google Applications

Professional Training for Joomla by Video2Brain

($19.99 value)

Trainer and consultant Laura Gordon teaches you everything you need to know to build a site with Joomla!, from installing the software, to adding and editing content, to working with components, modules, menus, and templates. You’ll learn how to create articles and categories; customize the appearance of text, images, and links; and maintain and update the site once you’ve built it — all without having to rely on outside experts!

URL: http://www.video2brain.com/en/courses/getting-started-with-joomla

URL: http://www.video2brain.com/en/courses/adding-dynamic-functionality-to-your-joomla-site

What you get: 7 day access to both of Laura Gordan’s courses on Video2Brain

12 Joomla eCommerce extensions from Joobi

($140 value)

Create your online shop and sell your products. You can manage products, give coupons, manage multiple currencies, and more. The Joobi Power Pack includes these products: http://joobi.co/marketplace/catalog/category/eid-24

What you get: 3 months access to Joobi Power Pack (which includes all the 12 Joobi eCommerce products).

ALL this for only $97? Wow!

How it works:

1. Buy the bundle at our store, before Monday July 9th, Click here to purchase
2. After the payment you will be taken to your “My Downloads” page
3. Download the package with instructions of how to access each item

This bundle is only available till Monday July 9th at midnight (PST), no exceptions! When it expires, you will not be able to purchase it on our site ever again. Don’t say I didn’t tell you.

Note: We do not offer refunds for this bundle, all payments are final.

Happy 4th of July!

Bundle expires on Monday July 9th at midnight (PST)

John Coonen, CMS Expo

I’ve been a participant and a presenter at CMS Expo for 5 years now and it’s always such a great pleasure! John and Linda Coonen are the ones who make this whole thing happen! They work all year round to bring together the best presenters and sponsors and create a truly uniqe conference experience.

So I thought it would be a good idea to have a little chat with John Coonen:

Tell us about CMS Expo, how it started and how it’s going?

We started planning the first event in 2007 as a response to massive growth in the CMS industry itself. The advent of open source CMSs in the mid 2000’s fueled massive demand for CMS technology, and the business savvy that goes along with it. We saw an opportunity to offer up a trustworthy connection point for all content pros – Admins, Businesspeople, Creatives &Developers – and we went for it. Turn out, we were right. CMS Expo has grown every year since.

Linda Coonen, Merav Knafo, Paul Orwig at CMS Expo

What was the highlight of this expo for you?

The highlight of CMS Expo for us this year was welcoming several new CMSs to the event, to share what they do, and give users and developers an incredibly valuable “front row seat” experience when it comes to how they create, store and deliver content. Knowing how one’s own CMS works is important, but it becomes exponentially more valuable within the context of how well it operates in comparison to others. Several CMS leaders, including Joomla, came to us afterwards and thanked us for the experience. It gave them great insights on how they can improve their systems, as well as business & community practices.

What got the most buzz this time around?

Responsive design. Hands-down.

CMS Expo Sponsors

How do you utilize social media for promoting CMS Expo?

Extremely well. We’ve found Twitter rules the day like no other tool. Daily, relevant, “real” tweets without a sales pitch wins every time.

How was meeting the new OSM president Paul Orwig, what was your impression?

Paul Orwig? 1) Excellent listener. 2) Credible leader.

You probably know more CMS than anyone in the world, which one is your favorite and why?

My favorite is the one that fits perfectly for each and every CMS owner, and responds to their needs with smart, solid solutions. Seriously. I came from the Joomla world by way of Oracle. Part of the beauty of today’s market is, they all move so fast to satisfy demand, my “favorite” changes often.

What do proprietary CMS do to convince people to pay when they can get it free with a CMS such as Joomla?

They hire well, and they respond to customer needs. “Free software” is great for do-it-yourselfers (and I’m one), but it’s not difficult to convince a business decision maker to choose a proprietary solution if the people on-board give the buyer a valuable competitive advantage. As I see it, the value of “free” becomes secondary for mid-sized and larger organizations in comparison to the value of a non-restrictive license. Ah, for another blog post

CMS Expo Expert Panel

What are the features that CMSs are now missing?

Great question. Where to start… hmmm…

• A Real WYSIWYG Editor. Sounds basic, I know, but this is a real stickler. Most CMSs accept TinyMCE as “good enough.” It’s not good enough. It sucks. It gives every nontechnical user a legitimate reason to hate CMSs, and refuse to use one, ever. 99% of content types are textual. 99.9% of CMSs have a WYSIWYG that closely resembles Microsoft FrontPage. #FAIL! Why are we stuck in 1994 on this issue?
• Versioning & Audit Trail. Many CMSs get ahead of themselves, and forget one of the key features businesses often look for is versioning, built-in to the core. You don’t find Joomla powering many Editorial sites for a good reason. The workflow process is built for a maverick freelancer who simply wants to get his or her blog post up and out; not built for a collaborative staff, requiring any editorial review, let alone short- or long-term archiving and its associated (and must-must must requirement) audit trail. For legal reasons and more, a lack of versioning and audit trail discounts about 90% of CMSs right from the get-go, for collaborative sites (something CMSs are best at).
• Powerful, Flexible APIs. When CMSs think they can do it all themselves, everyone suffers. A key to today’s successful CMS is its ability to be flexible and adaptable to. Those with a strategy of offering robust APIs to empower their customers will keep growing. Those which continue to ignore a strong API strategy, or miss deadlines to deliver promised APIs (same result) will go away.
• Smart Technology. I use that term broadly. Sounds “buzzy” I know. Brief explanation: if CMSs are to continue in a leadership role, seated at the center of organizations’ missioncritical technology plan, successful CMSs must take advantage of “Big Data” to empower owners, admins, content creators (and even visitors) with relevant, actionable information. Today, for instance, that may be in the form of a marketing dashboard or instantly accessible analytics graphs to help with marketing and editorial decision-making. Again, books are being written on the subject, but in the next year, CMSs must embrace how to embed, or allow for “smart” dashboards to empower site owners & admins. CRMs, Ecommerce and Marketing Systems are muddying the waters in this area right now, and CMSs are not responding fast enough to market demand.

You and your wife Linda seem to work well together as a team, is it always peace and harmony?

It is always harmonious between us, but there is not always peace. Linda keeps me in line, I keep Linda guessing. The Lord works in mysterious ways.

What are some of the partnerships you’ve seen developing in this CMS expo?

We’ve been the launchpad for several very successful business ventures. It’s been very satisfying to witness the growth, thanks in great part to our approach of connecting synergies together. Unlike other conferences or cheap knock-off events trying to mimmic us, we’re not out hustling sponsors, all the while, cherry-picking the attendee list for new clients. We’re not a web design or development firm; so our mission isn’t building sites or apps. Our sole purpose (and we’re good at it) is to shine a spotlight on the world’s leading CMSs (including Joomla) and the talented people who power them. We focus on bringing legitimate, quality content to the event, and that earns us trust among all members of the CMS Community, from attendees to speakers to sponsors.

We’re really great matchmakers, we know how to quickly spot prospects and refer the right prospects to the right developers, designers, marketers and consultants to make magic together.That’s what we love to do. We’ve helped small shops find multi-million dollar projects; we’ve helped very frustrated companies, non-profits and universities find solid, trustworthy partners; we’ve introduced developers to fortune 100 brands and have watched that blossom. It’s been a ton of fun!

What can we expect on the next CMS Expo?

A relentless focus on delivering relevant, trustworthy, practical information for one. Boiled down, we’re going to do an even better job of being the place to go where people know they can feel comfortable asking, “Can you show me how to to this?” and we will indeed show them.

Thank you!