Next Comuna Plazza or possibility of modification?

Hello, I’m new to templateplazza.com. Found this site in search of good CMS and template for a social community project.

Comuna2 Plazza is absolutely impressive, but for my project I need few more features: chat, event calendar, directory and classifieds. Chat, event calendar and directory are must, classifieds would be nice too.

Since “Request and Vote” section is not working yet, I will try to describe my project in this post.

It’s a local community web site, eventually this kind of template (if created or properly modified) could be used for any town/city, county, state or any group web site.
Goal: provide people with ability to meet, communicate, announce upcoming events, exchange opinions about local services, even sell or give away something locally.

15-20 latest forum posts would go in the middle of front page.
After that blocks starting with “random user” and “latest testimonial”, latest classifieds, etc.
Ability users to create blogs would be nice too.
May be some other things. The idea is to give local people to have everything LOCALLY on the same web site.

hi there vini,

if you found that communa2plazza template is kind of template that you want, why dont you just join us?

you can see communa2plazza in action and its information on here

Vini:

Andy actually has plans for a Communa3 with all kinds of additional features. Unfortunately, he needs to wait for Community Builder to release it's latest version as stable. I believe it's still in "release candidate" mode at the moment.

Thanks for quick reply.

Wid[otakkiri] - the answer is obvious – right now I don’t see big difference between joomla, drupal, modx and other CMS’s. And Communa2Plazza is not exactly kind of template that I want, that’s why I created this post – trying to find out what is what.
65 bucks is not a question, but I’m in search of good CMS and right template.

Thank you, tcraw1010, it looks promising.
I think, this kind of template has a big future, if comes with “quick setup” option and ability to easily enable/disable some features.
Example: I’m working with SEO only, but getting request from someone I can’t say “no”. Obviously, I need a CMS for this task. And now I care only about 2 points: security and right template.

I am on the same page as you, Vini - believe me.

In fact, I chat with Andy quite often in relation to this issue. He very much wants to create a "Comuna3" social networking template as well - with all kinds of very cool additional features that both he and I have discussed. Again, and unfortunately, we need to wait for CB to release their latest version as stable so that there will (hopefully) be as few issues as possible with a CB integrated template.

In the meantime, feel free to provide a list of the kinds of festures you would like to see in a new/updated social networking template from TP. Such suggestions will be very helpful when the time comes to develop the next Comuna version.

OK, let's think how to create a universal social networking template for all kinds' online social networks and online communities.
I will try to describe my vision from 3 major points:
1. It supposed to fit my needs for 2 projects (one - ethnic online community in USA, another - web portal /social network, kind of local much improved myspace/ for town in NY Metro area)
2. It supposed to be good.
3. It supposed to be good for online marketing, so author makes lots of sales and has interest to work on improvements and patches for this particular template.

I see it as UNIVERSAL template with thousands of downloads.
In most cases people looking for CMS without big knowledge, they are not Joomla pros, that's why Joomla (some stable version) with template should come in easy to install package.
This template should be able to fit and market as CMS template for:
1. City/Town/County/Ethnic Group online social community
2. College/University online social community
3. ??? Church ??? (big market)
4. Any Group/Club online social community (chess player's club, poker player's club, "allow guns" association, "disallow guns" association...)
5. Whatever else you can think of.

Again, building online communities and social networks is HOT in those days.
But, when people start to look how to do it, they finding that they need a CMS. After that they are trying to find a good CMS, after that a good template...
The template should be easy to use by not pros.
Don't scare them with future update to next version of Joomla, better promise, if you will sell xxx templates - patches will be released etc...


MARKETING

Make sure in meta tags on the page for that template you have:

<title>CMS Build Online Community universal template social network Joomla</title>

<meta name="description" content="Template for CMS Joomla to build online community universal template Communa3 Plazza social network easy to install and modify Joomla CMS template build online community universal template Communa3Plazza social network">

<meta name="keywords" content="Template CMS build online community universal template Joomla Communa3 Plazza social network easy install modify CMS template build online community universal Joomla template Communa3Plazza build social network easy install modify CMS template">

In description of the template (text on the page) you should have words from "keywords" tag to be repeated at least three times.
People will find you.
Check out this post:

http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?f=58&t=174529

- people are looking for a solution.

Create posts on joomla.org and other related forums with title "New Communa3 Plazza - universal Joomla CMS template to build online community/online social network".
If joomla.org people get it right, they will do their best to promote your template and, by the way, Joomla itself.
On some other forums create posts about "Universal CMS Template for Church", "Universal CMS Template for College" etc...
I think you can't loose.

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My online experience says that there are 6 important points of online community:
1. Forum - people like to read and make posts in forums, it makes them feel smart.
2. Chat - youngsters love chats.
3. Advanced profiles with testimonials, photos, galleries, groups, friends (Communa2 seems to have a good one)
4. Directory with ratings and comments - people like to share opinions about local services.
5. Classifieds to sell something to locals
6. Blogs


Let's take church as an example, Church of xxxx in xxxx state. Forum - needed, chat - maybe not, profiles - yes, directory - yes (church locations and, maybe, rating,), classifieds - yes (rent to people of same religion, garage sale etc), blogs - yes (how to live right life etc.).

Let's take a college. Forum - needed, chat - oh yeees, profiles - yes, directory - yes (where to eat, go out, buy books etc), classifieds - yes (roommates, used books and laptops etc), blogs - yes.

Suckerfish Dropdown Menu is excellent, wrap may be useful for everyone: church - for link to holy book, city/town - for link to official resources etc.

Front page would have main body on top of advert1 and advert2
next - 20 last forum posts (instead of or under advert1 and advert2)
user1-2-4-5 is ok
instead of user 6 I would put Latest Pictures
user11-12-13-14 is ok
next - SearchCloud
next - latest 10 classifieds
next - latest 10 directory activity
next - latest 10 blogs activity

cpanel - entry to chat (for logged in users show last 10 posts)
user21-22-23-24 stays
next - event calendar
next - 2 small advertising banners
next - who is online, users online, search + advanced search (general, user name, user group, forum, classifieds, blog, directory, etc)
next - weather in 3 locations defined by user, or 3 default locations in not logged in

right column stays same on each page
SearchCloud goes on each page

Will need
- lots of color combinations (maybe 20-30) to make happy everyone
- ability to easily change logo (upper right corner)
- ability to easily enable/disable some components

Maybe useful to have few default options during installation
- community with all features
- church
- college
- whatever else you can think of

PS.
1. I take it seriously - spent over 2 hours to put my opinion together.
2. English is not my first, nor second language, sorry if parts of grammar are incorrect.


Graphic reference: