Now that I have your attention, I’d like to share an idea.
I think most of us see MODx as the best CMS/CMF around. But it has a few factors against it:
1) A lot of people have never even heard of MODx.
Sure, MODx is a dream for anyone who has to build a website, but most people only know is Joomla/Drupal/WordPress. So they spend endless hours learning Drupal to do something that would take 5 minutes in MODx, they build what they can with Joomla, or they modify WordPress to do something it wasn’t built for. This is also a problem for clients. They are looking for a Joomla site, and have no idea that they really would be much happier with a MODx site. This is a problem of marketing.
2) Even when people hear about MODx, after a little investigation, many still aren’t impressed enough to use it. I have found that a number of people who are already familiar with another CMS don’t see the real benefit of MODx, so they never try it. If they built a few sites, they would be sold. But they aren’t impressed enough by what they see on the surface to change. I think there are also a lot of non-technical people who want to build a site, and when they don’t find any super simple tutorials for MODx, they go on and find something else that does have super simple tutorials. Or they don’t see a module for this or that (which does exist...but only on the forum!) so they go on. This is a problem of documentation. The redesign of the MODx site was a great step forward, but there is still a long way to go.
When you compare it to everything else, MODx is a lot better than the alternatives. However, we haven’t done a good enough job at letting other people know how good MODx would be for them. Now sure, everyone would like to see MODx have better marketing and documentation. The question is who is going to do this, when, and how. Sure, a lot of use would enjoy taking a month off from work that pays to write tutorials or wrap up a snippet we have developed for our own use into one of those cool one-click install packages for Revolution. But unless there is some financial benefit to us, most of us will never have time for that. If there were just some way to financially benefit from spreading the word about MODx, writing clear tutorials, making screencasts, packaging snippets for Revo....
Here is an idea. Why don’t we create a second MODx site, targeted to businesses, organizations, and individuals that want a new website or a website overhaul (and let the existing site be more targeted to developers). This second site would sell MODx as the ideal tool for current/future site owners, talking about the benefits for site owners.
The site would:
* Have a 2-minute tour like FoxyCart.com
* Show how easy MODx is for the end user to use.
* Show why MODx is better for their needs than Joomla, Drupal, etc.
* Show that with MODx you can ’do it yourself’--you don’t need to hire a developer for every little change.
* Have tons of tutorials and screencasts on how to do anything with MODx--all nicely organized to help the total newbie do an install, create a 404 page, configure the site, create some content pages, set up friendly urls, create a template, add menus....
* Have a thorough and clear guide to all stable/mature add-ons. If someone wants something that isn’t in there yet, they can describe it, and set a price they would be willing to pay if it was developed by a certain date. If others want the same feature, they could also pledge additional amounts (at least $20/pledge).
* Have a directory of MODx developers that people can contact to build a site for them or help them build a site.
* Have a directory of MODx-friendly webhosts.
So who would create all this great content? Well, we could set it up to reward developers for creating great content. Each article would have a little info about the writer at the end, pointing to their website. Once a developer creates enough tutorials or screencasts that are good enough to publish, they would be added to the directory of developers. You can get points by writing more tutorials, by getting high ratings on the usefulness of your articles, or by developing useful MODx add-ons. In the directory of developers, the more points you have, the higher your listing would be. So it would actually pay to write good documentation for MODx.
Hosting companies would be required to create a clear tutorial on how to install MODx on their host before they would be listed.
How much interest is there in a site like this? For all the developers on the forum, would you contribute to a site like this, with the hope of generating a little business?
