I know i said that I was done offering advice, but before I actually leave this community (because $100 was a lot to pay for something I will not use). I figured I will at least get my $100 worth and tell you exactly what I think, and exactly why I am switching back to JomSocial.
EasySocial is a great concept, I love the idea, and what features it does have are mostly superior to JomSocial in every way. So on what you have done, I have to say, GREAT JOB GUYS.
It is what EasySocial doesn't have that makes it absolutely worthless to me (and to anyone who wants to run a real community).
There is no front end administration/moderation with EasySocial. None what so ever. Non existent, and with any community of more than 400 people this is NEEDED. This is not a want it is a need. It is fundamentally vital to the health and usability of a community website for moderators to have the ability to moderate the site, from editing/removing content, to banning users, to limiting access to users etc. Without this EasySocial is simply going to fail, there is no question about it. Before doing anything else with EasySocial this needs to be added, it is more important than any other pending feature.
Next on the list is Videos. I know, it doesn't sound like an important thing. But it is. First off parsing videos from just a handful of sites is not enough. There are literally millions of websites out there that host videos, and inevitably users will try to use one that isn't supported. There needs to be a better way to add video parsers. The way it stands you have to completely build a new parser for each site that you want to add, this shouldn't be the case. You should be able to add any site that uses a standard format and just have it work.
Also on videos the lack of ability to upload videos is beyond asinine. Simply put this is a feature that could easily be handled with the video parser and a 3rd party component for Joomla!... so the question then becomes, why has StackIdeas not done this? It would take them all of MAYBE 2 hours to do, the fact that they have not tells me they simple do not care about what people actually want, and really just want to do things their way.
Facebook style Pages (something JomSocial doesn't have as well). This feature is so basic to social networking at this point that the fact that noone is doing is absolutely amazes me. If you can't figure out hwo to do it, simply create a system that allows a single user to have multiple profiles, and go from there. That at least is a start.
3rd Party Plugins, I know I harp on this one a lot, and many people will say this is not StackIdeas fault, and I say it absolutely is. The people at StackIdeas have freely admitted that they have not tested a single one of the 3rd party plugins, and they should be testing them all. If a company is going to release a product that works with your product, you should make **** sure that their product works correctly, and lives up to the same level of standards that your core product does. Otherwise you simply end up with a subpar product, as is what is happening now with EasySocial.
This post is turning into a book, so I will stop at this point. If StackIdeas can figure out and fix these things, let me know, I may be willing to give it another shot and offer more suggestions on ways to improve.
EasySocial is a great concept, I love the idea, and what features it does have are mostly superior to JomSocial in every way. So on what you have done, I have to say, GREAT JOB GUYS.
It is what EasySocial doesn't have that makes it absolutely worthless to me (and to anyone who wants to run a real community).
There is no front end administration/moderation with EasySocial. None what so ever. Non existent, and with any community of more than 400 people this is NEEDED. This is not a want it is a need. It is fundamentally vital to the health and usability of a community website for moderators to have the ability to moderate the site, from editing/removing content, to banning users, to limiting access to users etc. Without this EasySocial is simply going to fail, there is no question about it. Before doing anything else with EasySocial this needs to be added, it is more important than any other pending feature.
Next on the list is Videos. I know, it doesn't sound like an important thing. But it is. First off parsing videos from just a handful of sites is not enough. There are literally millions of websites out there that host videos, and inevitably users will try to use one that isn't supported. There needs to be a better way to add video parsers. The way it stands you have to completely build a new parser for each site that you want to add, this shouldn't be the case. You should be able to add any site that uses a standard format and just have it work.
Also on videos the lack of ability to upload videos is beyond asinine. Simply put this is a feature that could easily be handled with the video parser and a 3rd party component for Joomla!... so the question then becomes, why has StackIdeas not done this? It would take them all of MAYBE 2 hours to do, the fact that they have not tells me they simple do not care about what people actually want, and really just want to do things their way.
Facebook style Pages (something JomSocial doesn't have as well). This feature is so basic to social networking at this point that the fact that noone is doing is absolutely amazes me. If you can't figure out hwo to do it, simply create a system that allows a single user to have multiple profiles, and go from there. That at least is a start.
3rd Party Plugins, I know I harp on this one a lot, and many people will say this is not StackIdeas fault, and I say it absolutely is. The people at StackIdeas have freely admitted that they have not tested a single one of the 3rd party plugins, and they should be testing them all. If a company is going to release a product that works with your product, you should make **** sure that their product works correctly, and lives up to the same level of standards that your core product does. Otherwise you simply end up with a subpar product, as is what is happening now with EasySocial.
This post is turning into a book, so I will stop at this point. If StackIdeas can figure out and fix these things, let me know, I may be willing to give it another shot and offer more suggestions on ways to improve.