ech01 wrote:
I thought the module/skin certification was a great idea and its unfortunate that didn't last or wasn't executed with the necessary resources. I think that coupled with user reviews/ratings and real world examples would help the situation. I only deal with a few trusted module vendors, and rarely ever purchase skins. Everything is core or custom. It's a great selling point for DNN that they have thousands of apps available, so many (in my experience) are bloated, buggy, have confusing UI's or are not worth the running price. And I'm still looking for the cart that doesn't suck.
And there is a big part of me wondering if that will ever happen with a sadly what often times now seems broken DNN community. Pretty much all the initial innovation - and yes some of the bad core design issues - grew out of a growing / dynamic DNN community.
Is there anyone likely to step up and build that "cart that doesn't suck - if the perception of dnn is fundamentally damaged to the point that no one in the "developer/geek/hacker" call it what you like community is willing to continue promoting and evangelizing it.
And the same too can be said for the commercial developer community - if there isnt a strong public perception of DNN then it makes for a much harder "value proposition" argument when looking at the commercial potential of developing a real cart alternative. Building a new commercial cart for dnn would represent potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in 'paid design,management,development' - is remotely likely that an investor would stump up those sort of funds -- after doing a commercial due diligence on what might likely seem to be a publicly unpopular platform.
ech01 wrote:
And I certainly wouldn't spend time entertaining someone with no budget to speak of. I guess we probably have different perspectives, but when people get cheap on things like software, hosting and design, they get what they pay for. I often have to make an argument like "You're spending $50k on a mission critical website, and you are going to cheap out on $10 per month hosting? That doesn't make sense." Same applies for design & development.
Yet its no small irony that the core platform you are talking about is just that - free - and developed for many years by people with no budget. And the largest percentage of websites on the internet today still fit that description.
I guess yes sure we are looking at this from different perspectives - I started this thread to see what people think and feel - which is everyone entitlement.
ech01 wrote:
For those people ( non profits, small businesses, ma&pa, soho), there is always squarespace.
And if those people keep leaving and going to drupal, joomla and workpress - for its community - where does that leave the dnn value proposition in a couple of years time.
Many of those people today working in the "non-profit, soho, budget" end of the market are the next wave of influencers - they are unlikely to look at a platform they are not familiar or comfortable with when they are ready to spend real dollars on their first major commercial project - they are more likely to go with what they know.
In reality - that may already be happening - the wave of 'haters' on threads from 2009 - are already starting to arrive at that influencer point in some areas and ceo's of "big corporate" are actively being influenced everyday by sometimes even their 15 year old "tech genius' at the dinner table.
And I guess also - casting a very long bow - what happens to dnn if that lack of popularity over time brings ramifications to the DNNCorp undertaking. Funding rounds from angel and strategic investors is rarely about things like cash flow - its about exit strategies and downline IPO's = if the DNN "brand" were to sour to such a point where it became an unattractive proposition for the "money people" as well . . .
It does sometimes feels to me there is maybe more long term importance to growing a strong DNN open source community than is often times given credit to.
Just another 2 cents ...