If you’re trying to build an online community, and you lack programming experience, then Joomla CMS is the only real choice you should consider. Drupal and Wordpress can both achieve this, but each has their own pitfalls and challenges that Joomla has risen above.
With Drupal, the learning curve is very high, and as a Content Management System, its better suited to individuals with programming backgrounds.
Wordpress has plug-ins that are basically workarounds on the author system, and it can take a lot of time to develop a road map towards anything that makes sense for your needs. If you want to make a change in your community structure, you’re going to be in for a rough time.
Joomla CMS since version 2.5 has made setting up, organizing, and maintaining your online community very easy. Joomla now has incredibly flexible Access Level Control (ACL) features and the latest version of Joomla 3.x supports tags natively so you have endless ways to organize and manage your contnent. Customizing pages that either require your permission, or a certain fee, are as simple as installing one of Joomla’s many free or commercial extensions and configuring them to your specification. In addition the new Joomla 3.x allows you to use responsive templates for responsive front end designs and the default administration template is responsive (mobile ready) allows you to manage your portal from your favorite mobile device.
What makes Joomla the best choice for building effective online communities, beyond all of the other reasons mentioned above, is the fact it has the largest global community of web developers supporting it. You can get free support from many forums and a ton of free or professional training resources online. Just type in Joomla in Google or Bing and see what I mean. In addition since the boom and wide spread adoption of open source technology there are thousands of great companies offering professional support specific to the Joomla CMS.
Adding a new user, and categorizing them is as simple as filling out this form:
Joomla CMS has made setting up, organizing, and maintaining your online community very easy. Customizing pages or content that either require unique permission or implementing advanced data models are as simple as installing some of Joomla’s many free or commercial extensions. if you have more enterprise level requirements Joomla is more than a CMS it offers an application development platform. This means you can future proof your online business technologies and keep using Joomla as your business needs grow.
So if you consider, like we do, that every web site is a community of like minded visitors coming to you for whatever reason, a natural extension to this if you are more social oriented in your portal concept is to add some type of community building framework. In this case you should consider an extension like JomSocial as a top contender for a robust social interactive community building suite of tools. With JomSocial your users will be able to share content in activity streams, share photos or videos and collaborate in groups both public and private. You can also set up profile types and interact with e commerce or subscription management and many other tools.
You can take all of this a step further, and create a totally customized experience, tailor made to your specifications by a Joomla Development Specialist. This individual, or team, will ensure your vision is realized and your online community will experience your message the way you see fit. Working with a team of experts will help you move faster, make better decisions and reduce costs of maintenance and development.
Our team at CNP is dedicated to creating success stories with online community portals whether we are your chosen team or not so if you want to learn more about how to become a success story visit our community page where you can download our exclusive Seven Pillars of success brochure and access to other information that may be helpful for building your online community : Build sustainable online communities
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