Social Networking Site/Service Staking

Hey all,

As some of us are aware, Social Networking and Microblogging/Communities are popping up all over and being adopted as major vehicle of community building and communications. With sites like Twitter, FriendFeed, Plurk, Facebook (not new) and others where people can build communities.

I am not saying that we need to participate in all or any (although Twitter would be a good move) but staking a name-claim on these properties would be a smart idea as we don’t want others to control the MODx name in these venues.

I think that there could be a place for community building on Twitter amongst tech types to get the word out on certain parts of the project and interact on a different plane than the forums. It would position MODx with some great company and possible allow more exposure to the Project. There are quite a number of Devs who use Twitter and broadening the reach beyone the few articles (although growing fast) makes sense.

Be where our targets are. Interact with out users and potential users on a small individual scale.

We can set out a set of guidelines and some of the team could share in posting duties.

I’d be interested to hear from Brett on this as he has FoxyCart on there and they seem to have some amount of activity.

Cheers,
Jay

A strategy and case study of success would be interesting indeed.

I have a contact with a company who is working hard on social marketing itself so I’ll hit him up for an interview.

In the mean time my own view is that exposure, sharing and finding sub communities where communities gather makes sense. That also means forums but forums are often too restrictive and focused (as they should be) on helping vs. marketing.

I think we should be where people are and sharing ideas, opinions and being available to participate in discussions. It could be handled by the marketing team or we could also run dev announcements out there but in my opinion it makes a tonne of sense to establish mainstream tech presence.

On the flip side. If participation seems daunting, we should at least register MODx so that others don’t.

Again, my feeling is that since expanding global knowledge and participation in the MODx is a goal, all viable vehicles should be used to meet that end.

As far as strategy goes, I’d like to see what others’ strategy is.

Applicable and just posted: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1125-the-early-days-how-37signals-built-buzz-out-of-the-gate

Great idea Jay !

As you suggested, we definitely need to set a chat/ IM conference to set things up marketing wise so that everything is in perspective, planned and work splitted ! Debbie did a great job with the squidoo lense, maybe she could be our social networking asset here ?

By the way, I wonder if we should not "recruit" at least a couple of people @marketing to set things in motion.
With the rebranding happening, we might need the extra firepower... just a thought.

I have been struggling with keeping my business alive the past couple of months and this has taken a toll on my personnal contribution but I’ll try to rise up to the challenge with the exciting rebranding and your invaluable input we definitely can achieve some major strides marketing wise.

Now is the time, we shouldn’t miss the window of opportunity !

A personal note on social networks: I can’t stand them! But I see that they are very popular and a potential marketing tool. But is it necessary to look for talent from these networks rather than directly in the MODx community of people who have taken the time to be part of the effort. I am sure that there are some talented individuals who believe in MODx right here in the community that would like to participate if they were given a chance or if they thought that their help would be appreciated. The impression I get is that it is not clear if help is needed, I get mixed messages ranging from ’please help we need more contributors’ to ’don’t put your chocolate in my peanut butter’ and it is not really clear if help is really needed or will be appreciated (I have seen many code contributions go ignored and get lost in the forums). As an example, I am part of the team but I have no idea what is going on and where I can help, imagine those who are not in the team. I would like to see more effort in strengthening the community from the inside rather than the outside, and have clear gateways for those who want to participate to be able to contribute.

Anyway, I believe that it would be better (and more respectful to the community) if the first place to look for talent was in the community itself and then once these options don’t pan out then look outside. Just my 2¢ worth of hopefully constructive observation.

I think we should explore facebook.

Quote from: dev_cw at Jul 16, 2008, 07:57 AM

The impression I get is that it is not clear if help is needed, I get mixed messages ranging from ’please help we need more contributors’ to ’don’t put your chocolate in my peanut butter’ and it is not really clear if help is really needed or will be appreciated (I have seen many code contributions go ignored and get lost in the forums). As an example, I am part of the team but I have no idea what is going on and where I can help, imagine those who are not in the team. I would like to see more effort in strengthening the community from the inside rather than the outside, and have clear gateways for those who want to participate to be able to contribute.

It’s something I am very intent on improving. Very good point indeed, we have talked a lot about creating a clearer picture for would be contributors for the new modxcms.com (I’d even go as far as saying a contribute.modxcms.com subdomain is a must-have), and this has been taken into account for the new design. Hopefully it will be clearer and easier for people to contribute

If you have ideas regarding this specific question I’ll gladly read/hear them !

Quote from: dev_cw at Jul 16, 2008, 07:57 AM

A personal note on social networks: I can’t stand them! But I see that they are very popular and a potential marketing tool. But is it necessary to look for talent from these networks rather than directly in the MODx community of people who have taken the time to be part of the effort.

I’m not a huge fan either, but they definitely have their place. I don’t think we need to worry about finding existing "heavy hitters" in the respective communities, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt.

... The impression I get is that it is not clear if help is needed, I get mixed messages ranging from ’please help we need more contributors’ to ’don’t put your chocolate in my peanut butter’ and it is not really clear if help is really needed or will be appreciated (I have seen many code contributions go ignored and get lost in the forums). As an example, I am part of the team but I have no idea what is going on and where I can help, imagine those who are not in the team. I would like to see more effort in strengthening the community from the inside rather than the outside, and have clear gateways for those who want to participate to be able to contribute.

There’s a ton we can do to improve team communication. From the standpoint of code getting into MODx evo or revo, it really needs to go into Jira/Crucible and preferably into a branch in SVN. That way it won’t get lost. Forums are for support and discussing ideas, not necessarily the best place to contribute code as you’ve unfortunately found out.

Anyway, I believe that it would be better (and more respectful to the community) if the first place to look for talent was in the community itself and then once these options don’t pan out then look outside. Just my 2¢ worth of hopefully constructive observation.

We’ll likely continue to do both. There’s a ton of talent who doesn’t even have a clue about MODx yet and we’d like to help them find out about it.

Quote from: davidm at Jul 16, 2008, 08:23 AM

(I’d even go as far as saying a contribute.modxcms.com subdomain is a must-have)

I 100% agree.