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The Problem

We were faced with the problem almost every company has.. That of making sure that information sharing across the organization is maximized in a bid to improve overall efficiency & educate our employees. To help do this, we started quickly put together a Company Intranet using some great extensions like Kunena, Docman, Phoca Gallery & of course Joomla content ( We Plan to upgrade this to Flexi Content later)

One of the Major issues, which you must have already guessed ... Was that the intranet was in place for over 6 Months.. but the activity was limited to a few individuals.. But even then no one else was looking at the posted info.. So effectively.. there was no information sharing .. file sharing.. Nothing.. Nada

After taking some offline sessions, we realized that though we were promoting the intranet heavily, there was no way for the people to know when new content was added..

The Solution

Who would believe that the Solution had been staring at us, sitting  in our own Downloads Area at Techjoomla for months !..  So in came J!MailAlerts..

We set it up with plugins for Kunena, Phoca Gallery, Docman & Joomla content & also threw in a new custom made plugin called most active users which calculated most active users across the extensions we were using.

We are now using this on our Intranet for almost a month now & we love the results.. Read on to see actual usage statistics & see how an alert email looks when there is content available from all the plugins..

More new J!MailAlerts Plugins are coming ...

Here's a Sneak Peak at one of the most wanted ones ! The preview only shows a few activities but the actual ones supports everything you can do in Groups - Users, Photos, Videos, Discussions, Wall Posts, Bulletins, Events ... All packaged in a snazzy looking output :)

Comment away people.. The more comments we get the earlier we shall release !

This is one question that i have been needing to answer almost everyday..

So here is an update of where SocialAds development is at ..Well atleast these are the features that i could quickly take some screen shots of anyways !

Quick Look at SocialAds 2.0

1. Community Builder Integration Option

I guess this is the biggest announcement yet.. Community Builder (CB) users have been after us ever since we released SocialAds to do an integration.. So here were are :) Now you have an option to Either integrate with JomSocial or CB.

2. Charge per day

Another new option to help you make even more money :) A lot of users asked us for an option to let Advertisers pay on a Per day basis in addition to the Pay per Click & pay per impression option since for small sized sites, it was easier to charge on a daily basis. Set this up & let advertisers decide how many days they want the ad to run & pay accordingly ! According to some Client sites where this has been running for a while, this option definitely ads buildings in the earnings graph :)

3. Fuzzy & Exact Mapping option for Text fields & Targeting Engine Revamp

Now you have an option of adding an Exact Select option for Input Box fields. We found that a lot of times, these fields were used for City, State, Zip code etc which were important targeting options & using the older engine which usually did a Fuzzy match (unless you used the force option that was available earlier) which didn't always give correct results. Also the earlier engine needed that we make some fields compulsory for Advertisers to fill out Or "Select All" which was not desirable from the Usability view point.

Now you can decide whether you want a Input field to be treated as a Fuzzy Select or Exact Select. If you are using it for a field like Interests, it should be fuzzy while if using it for a field like City, State, Zip code etc.. it should be exact..

P.S. The Simple Mapping you see below is part of a feature we will introduce in a later release which will  have the option to split the targeting into Simple & Advanced .

4. Quick Stats in the Approve Ads view

Now you can see some Quick Stats in the Approve ads view with the number if Clicks, Impressions & Ignores shows right there..

5. View Ignores & Ignore Stats

We have had the ability to provide feedback when ignoring ads from the first release but had no way to actually see why people ignored, how many ignored etc. This release lets the admins see this information. Later releases will also let ad owners see it which the admin shall be able to toggle.

6. Offline Payment methods

Version 2.0 shall add 2 new payment methods for offline payment. These will be Pay by Check & pay by Purchase order

7. Guest Ads

Yes :) its here ! Now you can let your advertisers create Guest Ads !

Just the start ...

Well this is the just the start.. There's a ton of code improvements under the hood as well as small features added here & there..

Baby SocialAds is 6 Months Old

Our SocialAds Baby celebrated its 6 Month Birthday on 2nd December. In this short timespan, SocialAds has come to power hundreds of JomSocial websites & help them make money.We would like to thank you all for your Amazing support & great feedback & encouragement that pushes us to do better all the time..

Planning for 3.0 has started !

We have begun planning for SocialAds 3.0 the next major release.. So this is the best time to tell us what you want to go in it ! Comment away people !

Its been a long time since we did a release of Invitex. We have been hard at work and as of today more than 45 major & minor issues being solved & more than 10 new features, this promises to be a release you all will love ! Since a lot of our users have been asking us about whats coming, we are blogging about this release today.

Also note that if you are interested in Beta Testing this release, We shall be releasing a Beta to all subscribers in a few days & you can file bugs using the integrated bug tracker that we shall open up then.

So coming to Invitex 2.0 ...

I will not go into each & every small feature added, but take you through the most exciting ones..

1. Support For Alpha User Points & JomSocial Points

2. Ability to set Invitation expiry in days

3. Brand New Email template & Emogrifier support so that better supported emails are sent

4. Support for Social Network Plugins in Open Inviter

5. Ability to filter out registered users & allow the inviter to PM them .

Thats just the tip of the iceberg.. There are numerous other code improvements & UI improvements as well. Thats all now from the Invitex team .. We look forward to hearing your feedback & suggestions..