Destiny Technologies specializes in customizing the open-source, open-market content management solution called JOOMLA. This software is available to any developer who wishes to gain experience and expertise with the system. Programmers, designers and developers at Destiny Technologies have been working with JOOMLA almost as long as it has been available to the public. The advantage for our clients is that rather than utilizing a website developed in a proprietary code which ties the client to the owner/developer, our JOOMLA websites are wholly owned by our clients and there are thousands of companies and individuals working on this community.

JOOMLA is a powerful and efficient tool for developing highly interactive websites and online communities because of the ease of use by the average client with only minimal training. There are a wide variety of modular functions for E-commerce, newsletter subscriptions, blogs, response and comments, interaction with outside social media networks and the development of profile development and sharing (Facebook-style) which can be applied and programmed into a custom site.

We have a deep level of experience with both content management utilizing JOOMLA and online communities and consider these our preferences for development.
All these things make Joomla a GREAT OPTION for Non-profit organizations, since you can develop Content Management Communities with lots of features for a very low price.

Here's a new website we just put live this weekend for a non-profit organization in the Sarasota, Florida Area. (Bertha Palmer Alive!)

INTRODUCTION - WHAT IS JOOMLA!?

Joomla! is an award wining open source content management system (CMS). It's open source like the Linux OS, so that means it's free to use and millions of people give up their spare time to develop it.

OPEN SOURCE IS GOOD NEWS

Open Source is generally good news for individuals, non-profit organizations and those companies on a budget. You can spend a lot of money on a commercial CMS, but there are solid reasons for going open source. To start with, your web site won't be in the hands of a software company that can go bust at any moment and you won't be paying expensive maintenance contracts to these companies. 


Static HTML or DYNAMIC site? Take your pick.

a) What is a good news/media site? Actually today what is good site? ANY SITE needs these things.

Put simply:

• It has a 'front-end' (home page)  that changes frequently
• A template design that will appeal to the audience and is easy to navigate.
• It also has 'back-end' database that is stacked full of brilliant content generated by a team of journalists (or perhaps just you!).
• It's search engine friendly.

All major news sites are built around a CMS. Some 'big beasts' include Tridion (used by Emap) and eScenic (used by Daily Telegraph, CNN, Informa  and The Independent) - but you obviously pay a lot for these solutions.

b) Would you benefit from a CMS or are you better using straightforward HTML?

You don't have to be a big media giant to benefit from using a CMS.

1. Do you update your site more than once a week?  (you should if you want to come up in the search engines)
2. Do you have multiple contributors (e.g. writers) to the site?
3. Do you want to keep design separate from content?

If you answer 'yes' to any of the above - a CMS would definitely be worth a look.


JOOMLA! - FREE AND EASY TO UNDERSTAND

There is something about using a CMS that sounds:

• Really complicated
• Really expensive

You can certainly make expensive mistakes - particularly if you take the advice of the designer/programmer, who created a CMS back in 2005 and he still thinks it's REALLY great.

So have a reason to reject open source solutions before looking to a commercial CMS.

Joomla its easy and free, so if you are developing a website with a design company using joomla you'll save lots of money and lots of time.

There are a number of free CMS to consider, alongside Joomla!

• Drupal see a video of some well-known sites that use it
• Wordpress (yes, this 'blog' tool is increasingly being used for websites)
• Xaraya see my post for more info.

There are others worth looking at like:

• Movable Type
• Expression Engine
• Radiant
• TextPattern
• DotNetNuke

It's amazing the number of editors that seem to 'apologize' for using free tools and want to keep it secret. All of them had a good look around and have concluded that Joomla!, Drupal, or WordPress actually fit the bill just fine. So say it loud and proud - I USE OPEN SOURCE!

WE WENT WITH JOOMLA! and RECOMMEND IT to ALL OUR CUSTOMERS!

For more information about Joomla you can go to www.joomla.org or just contact us.
We provide affordable, search engine friendly, CMS websites using Joomla technology. Click here to see some websites developed using this great technology.


Original Post: http://srh.typepad.com/blog

A few months ago YouTube announced that organizations that are in the YouTube Nonprofit Program would be able to use the overlay advertising feature to create donation links. They call the feature “Call To Action”. While this feature was nice, it was really limiting. In addition to only appearing in a very limited way on the video, it only works on YouTube and not when you embed the video on other sites.

The good news is that now, Nonprofits that are part of the YT Nonprofit Program, will have the ability to create links to an EXTERNAL WEBSITE (not only youtube videos). All they’ll have to do, when creating an annotation, is click the “link” symbol and select “external link”. Then they’ll be able to link to external sites right from the annotation. Better still, these annotations should show up on embedded videos.

If you still aren’t sure what all of this means, it means that nonprofit YouTube videos can have buttons built into the videos that say DONATE NOW or SIGN THE PETITION and these buttons will work—they will link to any site you point them to. You can even go back to all your old videos that are on YouTube and make your logo into a clickable link, add annotations to donate with a link, and otherwise make your video into a center of engagement. This is now, by far, the most important reason to be in the YouTube Nonprofit Program.

People who watch videos on YouTube are very likely to do one thing when they are done…watch another video on YouTube. Not any more. With this new feature, YouTube can become a center for creating effective calls to action and engagement.

If you need more information about the Youtube Nonprofit Program click here to contact us or go to the youtube nonprofit website.

Here's a video we found explaining and showing this featured working:

Original Blog post:  beth.typepad.com