formVista Website Marketing and Business Development Blog

Technorait Blog index

no_author@no_author.com — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 19:59:32 EST

I've submitted this blog to the Technorati blog index:

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Personal Patterns

no_author@no_author.com — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 16:09:14 EST

I've been spending my time recently researching how the downloadable software industry has changed, especially in the finance/investing world. This is part of my work on Personal Stock Monitor and it's associated formVista based social networking site CollabInvest.net.

I may be guilty of relying too much on google these last several years. Going through Technorati.com, blog trackbacks, web rings and niche search engines I'm finding all kinds of relevant sites that I would never have found on google.

When looking for new opportunities, consider your own personal patterns and habits. They may be what's holding you back.

An Excellent Article on Marketing your website

no_author@no_author.com — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 16:23:12 EST

formVista was developed initially as a tool to make marketing on the web easier.

formVista makes each of the use cases outlined in this article much easier:

6 Fool-Proof Steps to Make More Money With Your Website

Another good small-biz marketing blog

no_author@no_author.com — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:36:44 EST

A friend forwarded me this this marketing blog today. The writing style is pretty funny but her points are dead on. There is also an active community of commentors, which are equally engaging.

http://ittybiz.com/

White House Website Switches To Open Source Content Management Platform

no_author@no_author.com — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 13:13:33 EST

Interestingly, the White House has ditched their proprietary content management system in favor of Drupal, another open source content management platform not unlike formVista.

As reported on Slashdot:

"WhiteHouse.gov has gone Drupal. After months of planning, says an Obama Administration source, the White House has ditched the proprietary content management system that had been in place since the days of the Bush Administration in favor of the latest version of the open-source Drupal software. Dries Buytaert reflected on this, adding: 'this is a clear sign that governments realize that Open Source does not pose additional risks compared to proprietary software, and furthermore, that by moving away from proprietary software, they are not being locked into a particular technology, and that they can benefit from the innovation that is the result of thousands of developers collaborating on Drupal.'"

So you want to grow your site to one million users and beyond

no_author@no_author.com — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 13:54:35 EST

This is an excellent bullet point presentation that my business partner, Anatoly, found. It's by the founder of Digg.com.

http://carsonified.com/blog/web-apps/9-ways-to-take-your-site-from-one-to-one-million-users/

Web Ink Now

no_author@no_author.com — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 23:13:31 EST

An excellent marketing blog from the author of the New Rules of Marketing and PR:

http://www.webinknow.com/

The New Rules of Marketing and PR

no_author@no_author.com — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 17:54:16 EST

As another step in my quest to understand why things that worked like a champ just a few years no longer do, I'm currently reading The New Rules of Marketing and PR.

It's surprising to me that so many of the reasons why we originally created formVista are discussed in this book.

formVista 0.8.9.0 is now available for immediate download

no_author@no_author.com — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 23:36:00 EST

formVista^tm 0.8.9.0 Beta 1 is now available for download from the downloads page.

This is the first public release. Recent changes include:

A completely reworked installation and setup system.
A completely reworked login system featured digest authentication.
A newly minted theme selector allowing you to switch website themes on the fly.
Website content and contacts import and export through linked CSV files.
MyLegalFirewall support which is a website legal document preparation service where you answer questions in a wizard and it immediately prepares solid legal documents that are then automatically inserted into your site.. The privacy policy, terms of service, and legal page on this site were prepared through that service.
HTMLPurifier integration.
The new FVML <contact> tag which automatically handles adding/updating contacts in the contact manager while maintaining a changelog history.
Support for jQuery.
A completely reworked blog with comments and a categorized search system.
A completely reworked forum with inline image and video posting and the first version of fvCode markup.
A completely new member system with member profiles, social networking style friends lists, private web messaging, web notifications, privacy settings, etc.
Integrated the latest stable version of the Xinha WYSIWYG HTML Editor.
newly organized site_local heirarchy allowing for multiple local themes and for per asset overrides on a per stock theme basis as well.
An Installation manual. (see the documentation page)
The beginnings of a users manual. (see the documentation page)

New formVista powered site - takebackyourbirth.com

no_author@no_author.com — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 00:49:39 EST

Yet another new formVista powered community site http://takebackyourbirth.com.

New formVista site launched - www.nbinteractive.com

no_author@no_author.com — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 00:08:31 EST

Ryan over at Nuts and Bolts Interactive, Inc has launched a completely redeveloped corporate site based on the latest version of the formVista website management engine. Check it out:

www.nbinteractive.com

New formVista site - duncansterling.com

no_author@no_author.com — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 09:35:49 EST

I helped a friend of mine, Duncan Sterling, put up a placeholder site using formVista.

http://www.duncansterling.com

formVista has an extension called goalTracker, a website analytics package I wrote ages ago. It approaches website analytics from the point of view of "actions" or "goals" that one is interested in.

A site might get alot of traffic but it may not be doing anything for you. So goalTracker tells you what traffic is actually accomplishing goals on your site that you're interested in. This has been very useful on our stock market product sites, Personal Stock Monitor, Personal Stock Streamer and CollabInvest. You'd be amazed how you can get thousands of visitors all of the wrong kind.

One novel report I have is called "link propagation". Over a given period of time, how many new sites have sent traffic your way? It's a metric for how effectively you're getting the word out.

Another report is a search engine keyword report. What keyword searches are actually bringing people to you site?

Since Duncan's site is a brand new clean site that's very narrowly focused, I'm experimenting with link propagation and keyword searches.

Open Source release of formVista core is coming

no_author@no_author.com — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 18:22:39 EST

I am slowly inching towards an open source release of formVista. We are still discussing the licensing but right now it looks like it's going to be an LGPL license.

I don't have an ETA yet, but check back here for updates.

Update 13 July 2009 : As a result of this article on the GPL, I am reconsidering my licensing options.