Visual Recommend 1.1.0 Review - Overall Rating: 4 ½ out of 5 Stars

This is a trimmed down Full Review of Visual Recommend which includes images and more review notes and that full review is being made available to the Bernard by the end of this week.

VISUAL RECOMMEND REVIEW v 1.1.0
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In the era of massive competition for eyeballs, one of the most important features that is a must to add to a content rich site is a Viral Recommend or Invite Friend feature, especially a social networking site that depends on user-created content or articles and stories submitted by citizen editors to perfect a single article, and increase the article content for greater visibility and peer review.

For Joomla, there have been a few attempts at providing an easy to Invite or recommend to friends solution, and while some of them will do in a pinch, none have come even close to what Bernard Gilley has come up with, especially with his introduction of v 1.1.0 of Visual Recommend Viral marketing and viral advertising referral extension.

INSTALLATION & CONFIG SETUP - 5 out of 5 Stars
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Visual Recommend is easy to install, and once you set it up, it is invaluable at assisting site developers with viral marketing techniques that can and will produce rapid increases in brand awareness, through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of pathological and computer viruses but with positive results.

The increase in popularity of a site can often be through word-of-mouth delivery of recommends for site content and with the addition of Visual Recommend Component to your Joomla site, the spread of your content can be enhanced online and you can harness the social networking effect of the Internet through friend to friend recommendations, and this can be very useful in reaching a large number of people rapidly.

I have been creating a number of social networking sites these past few months, and recently introduced a Casual GamingCenter Solution to one of my sites, and by installing the latest version of Visual Recommend, I have already been able to see a definite increase in site visitors and content recommendations by members encouraging their contacts to view the casual game content on my site. By implementing a stealth marketing campaign with VR I have already increased the visibility of the 770 Casual Games that I offer to site members and visitors and it's only been 3 days since I added everything. Without VR the task would be a challenge.

FEATURES & SUPPORT for VR v1.1.0 – 4.5 out of 5 Stars
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From the feature list above, you will see there is a huge list of features included in this invaluable Joomla extension. And the developer (Bernard Gilley of Visualclinic.fr) has put some thought and a more than a usable set of initial features into VR, especially for a v 1.1.0 and donation type extension.

The Back-end Control Panel and setup features and configuration are simple to use, and are well designed. The General settings are easy to configure, and you can set the maximum set of email recommends from 1 to 10 if you want. You can set features such as visitors or only Registered users; the ability to have a user custom message; popup window width and height settings; and the ability to add Google Adsense ads. You can also set the Section of your site to display or not display the Recommend articles… feature. And you can set the Mail settings; Mail Subject; Mail Message Body and use the Available tags to customize the message body: {sender_name},{friend_name},{sitename}{title_content_url}{custom_field_by_user}.

There are some things that can definitely be improved with VR, such as the padding and layout of the recommend form (popup window), and I have noticed that I get some stray nrn characters in text messages. But since this is just the first release update at v1.1.0, I expect that Bernard will be making steady improvements to this already fantastic extension. My wish is for Plaxo Address features such as the one that is used in AJAX PlaxoInvite CB Plugin, where the person that is recommending can import users' email from their mail accounts (Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo mail, Outlook or Outlook Express etc) using Plaxo's free Address Book Access Widget. If this capability was added, plus cool buttons that you could choose or ad in the back-end to enhance the visibility of the Recommend article... link as a button instead of just text, this would be a dream come true marketing assistant and member reward for assistance extension.

REWARDS YOUR SITE MEMBERS FOR THEIR RECOMMENDS
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And to help you reward your site members for their recommends, and positive referral rates, Bernard has included a statistics tracking features to keep you informed on who is assisting you with your article and content marketing. There is a feature that allows you to set the Awards (number of points) for registered users only to keep track of the Points by sent mail, and the Points on the number of positive recommends. This will enable you to track your members article recommends and reward them for assisting you in your marketing efforts.

As an exercise I placed Recommend articles... link on some of my new articles and reviews of new casual Games, and within hours there were 48 unique visitors recommending the site articles to others using the VR’s Recommend articles... link. And I believe that My site will gain more recommends when I add the new button I believe I will get an above average recommendation rate of members, however, when new casual games are reviewed, they are definitely an item that many people will recommend to friends, especially if they are fun to play.

Here's a conservative prediction of what putting the Visual Recommend articles link on a site might do for you.

* Assuming a 5% click-through-rate and referral rate using a Recommend articles link,
* Assuming that 50% of the recommendation recipients click-through to see the site,
* Your site could experience a traffic increase of 2.5% per month from this method.

By offering incentives to your members, the number might increase significantly.

And you might want to consider making a standard line of Visible text and/or a Reward encouragement icon (image) and some intro text at the bottom of each article above the Recommend article... link to encourage readers to click the Recommend article... link to send it to friends, because it gives the visitor something to do after they finishing reading.

SUPPORT and FEEDBACK
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I recently asked some questions of the developer, and Bernard has been fantastic in his responses, even though I try my best not to ask him unless I really need the help figuring something out. After asking a list of 5 questions a day ago, Bernard gave me the answers I needed right away, and now I can add an attractive and compelling colored button to match my templates Add Comment button to increase the visibility of the Recommend article... feature that sits just below my content articles, and this will definitely help increase the click through rates for those might consider recommending my article content pages to their friends.

NEW SUPPORT - FEEDBACK FORUMS ON VISUALCLINIC.FR
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And now that Bernard has implemented a his new Forums at Visualclinic.fr, users of VR will be able to share ideas and get feedback on how to improve VR, and provide each other with support, which will free up Bernard to focus on new features. NOTE!) - I will post the full review later this week on the VC forums.

How well does the Visual Recommend system work?
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As far as features, it is the best solution available!!!

As far as what it will do for you, I think a lot depends upon your site. Do you have good content that impresses people? If so, a Recommend articles… link makes it easy for visitors to tell their friends. You can probably expect that if you have the VR link on our site for several months and the effect will probably be very noticeable. I have found that the placement of the link will make a big difference in the amount of recommendations you’ll get. Visual Recommend makes it very simple, with just one form, to recommend the site to our potential readers, new visitors and customers. I plan to implement a prize offer to encourage my site readers to recommend articles to friends.

Who wouldn’t want an Ipod, just for their recommendation?

On a word of caution! Some people find Recommend features and especially viral tools distracting and annoying. So if you experience some comments back from site visitors that they feel the recommendation emails they received were a bit 'in your face' in terms of invading their email space, then you might want to make sure you are being careful as to the use of the VR feature. This is where Common Sense Needs to Be More Common! This tool is a great addition for any site owner, but don't abuse it. Learn how to use it properly and it will be invaluable for you and your site.

In conclusion, by adding Visual Recommend capabilities to your site(s) you'll get A HIGHER referral rate using their Recommend articles… link, rather than any other Invite extension, or nothing at all, and I believe if you opt for adding an attractive Recommend Articles button, YOUR Referral RATE will be HIGHER yet, especially if you have a strong content site, your traffic will probably see some serious growth over time.

I highly RECOMMEND VR from Visualclinic.fr!!!

RandyMac
Editor/Administrator

SIMPLY AMAZING! LOOK OUT CANADA.com, people are finding out about WK UNPLUGGED for their daily news fixes!

Let's face it. Attracting eyeballs requires a focused visually appealing and interactive area on any site front page, and the first version of Frontpage Slideshow from Joomlaworks is a Joomla developers blessing! By releasing this combination, you've given my site the COMPETITIVE EDGE I have hoped for and waited a long time for to attract visitors attention to my sites' front page.

I can now compete against much larger sites, especially when I combine this with RSS feeds for Top News Story content.

Since adding this dirt cheap, extremely valuable, easy-to-use Component/module combination 3 days ago, my site traffic has increased 3 fold, with return visitors and new visitors, and I attribute most of this traffic to addition of this combination extension set. Yes, a 300% increase in traffic and return visits, and I have noticed many more new visitors this evening as I write this review.

In it's initial release, v1.0, (now updated with some fixes) the extension took a day to get working properly on my frontpage, but this was a result of template issue, and this was resolved with the help of Aravot, a very helpful Joomla developer that gave his time freely to help me this past weekend.

Once I learned the fine details of using this component and module, I set up a slide show template in Fireworks, and now I can create my lead in Intro Text for new news stories and articles (content items) and then I add my graphic image slides to contain the content, and upload the slides from the component!

It's SO SIMPLE! AMAZING, as the results are a clean (interactive or passive) slide show of TOP NEWS stories, with links to the stories, or advertisers content. I now have 13 news stories on my front page cycling, with links to the Top content stories, and it has made things so much easier for me.

I haven't looked into styling of the module which displays the slideshow, but since it's entirely CSS based and since Joomlaworks will be releasing "CSS templates" ready-made to suit different tastes, I believe this extension set to only get better and better, as have all other Joomlaworks extensions.

Thanks Joomlaworks, for making this so extremely affordable! You helped me make my site shine by giving me the glue and tools to keep my visitors coming back for more and more.

We install many Joomla extensions and they are all great or good at what extended functionaity they provide. And then there's a simple mambot, that gets ya jazzed up...

Wee installed Mjaz Personalize, and we were so happy we did. It's the holiday season, and this mambot allows for the perfect way to greet site members, and make them feel at home on your site. It gives you control of the messages and greetings for your valued site members.

As stated in an earlier review, this little mambot opens up a whole world of interaction between the site and it's members.

Thanks so much to the developer for this little GEM.

RandyMac and Team

Hot Or Not2
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Version Reviewed: 2.0.2

Installation:
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4/5 - The install process is simple if you have installed components and modules before.

Features:
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5/5 - This component has most all features right now for making a Hot or Not photo Gallery available on your Joomla site. The developers seem to add features and have many modules available which makes this system very flexible. It's exactly what our members have been waiting for us to add. It also features admin features and settings to stop abuse etc.

Configuration:
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4/5 - The configuration is relatively easy if you are familiar with Joomla components and configuring modules in the positions on pages that you want to display these add-on features.

Performance:
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4/5 - So far the performance appears to be fine, but there are not too many photos on our site so far to test it for load, display times and user performance etc.

Support:
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4/5 - We just installed this Hot or Not2 extension and modules and so far we have not had to contact the developers, so we can't really comment too much. But considering it is available for free, we aren't expecting the developer to answer every question we might have. From what we see on their site, and from the change log from version to version, it appears as though the fix bugs regularly, and answer and support this component for the active community of Joomla sites using it.

Overall Rating:
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4 out of 5 - If you want a Hot or Not feature on your Joomla site, this is it. A must have for Hot or Not. We would give it a 5 out of 5 if you used it for a while, but so far it works great!

We are currently testing this new HOT or NOT section before we make it available on a full time basis to the public and our members, and we expect that this to be a popular feature for our members and site visitors.

Thanks to the Hot or Not development team for making this component and modules available for Joomla.

RandyMac, ADMIN

Out of 5 Evaluation: * poor or very alpha, ** acceptable, 3 Stars *** Good Start, 4 Stars **** Very Nice extension, 5 Stars ***** A Must Have Extension.

Xe-MusicGal v1.0

Version reviewed: 1.0

Installation: * * * (OK. It could use better documentation, but the install went as expected without a hitch. User Docs for new Joomla users would be very beneficial for user and publisher)

Features: * * * * (some refining of features would make it much better, but it has pretty decent features right now for a V1.0. And if you want a Music Gallery on your site that has a number of must have features, then this is the extension to get. Will try V1.1 soon and give another review to see what improvements or features have been added...)

Configuration: * * * (Easy - but could use some good documentation to help new users get started quicker, but all in all, it was easy to configure this component and get it working on my site.)

Performance: * * * * (seems to perform OK for a V1.0)

Support: * * * * * (I have always received excellent support from the Xe-Media staff. They have always helped me with my questions. So far I give them good marks for their tech support via email and their support forums.

Overall: * * * * (a Pretty Good V1.0, and this reviewer expects Xe-Media to continue improving this Music Gallery extension based on feedback from their users experience and usage.

Cons: If some Good documentation was provided with this extension, or on their website in a PDF, or an online version (perhaps a wiki) it would help the publisher satisfy more users, and make new users happier at purchase time.

We are currently testing our new Music Gallery section before we make it available to the public, and we expect that our users will like what we will have for them later this month. We couldn't have down this without this extension.

RandyMac, ADMIN
WestKootenayUnplugged.com

I downloaded the AdsManager Classifieds Component and didn't expect to see much, but I was soon impressed with this new extension. We have wanted to add a classifieds section to our news portal to augment our new Mosets Directory Tree and soon to be added Hot Property extensions, and Thomas Papin's AdsManager is the answer.

There are a few things that can be improved, but all in all this extension does what it says. We found out that we can have sub-categories, and we look forward to providing feedback to Thomas to make this a truly must have extnesion for Joomla. Good stuff Thomas.

We have started creating some USER documentation for AdsManager, and some tech notes to use this extension and have created a number of Classifieds category images (icons) and will send them to Thomas Papin so he might include them in a future version to help users get this Classifieds extension up on their Joomla sites quicker.

RandyMac
West Kootenay Unplugged

Before we add an extension to our Richie Sowa Spiral Island website, or any other Joomla driven site we create, we run it through our hands-on experience, literally. We install the component, module, or mambot into our testing site, where we see, touch, and rigorously test. Most extensions do not pass our internal test trials to install on our live sites.

We focus on testing and rate in these 4 key areas
* Design: How does it look and feel?
* Features: What does it do?
* Performance: How well does it work?
* Quality and Cost: How well is it supported by the developer and what does it cost?

In the past few months we had a need for a visitor commenting extension, and we tested all that were available, except the commercial one. Some worked, but didn't meet our test criteria. We needed one ASAP, and just when we thought we had to settle for the commercial one before we tested it, we found the all new JomComment from Azrul.

From the very start we knew the developer was serious about making this commenting system meet Joomla users needs. This developer has gone above and beyond our standards for design, features, performance, support, and quality assurance since releasing JomComment 1.0. Support is extremely prompt. The developer listens closely to users wants and needs. He adds new capabilities, and fixes bugs immediately, and releases new versions right away. Software in Me (Azrul) has evolved JomComment in such a short time, to become one of the most quality Joomla extensions we rely on for our sites. Since it's commercial, it may turn some off, but we say your missing the point of providing your site visitors with the best solution. JomComment is worth far more than the $12.50 USD that Azrul charges for such an excellent commenting system.

Based on our Joomla extension criteria and the results we got from our quantitative and qualitative tests, we rate JomComment an 8 1/2 on a scale of 1 to 10. We'd give it a 9 1/2 out of 10, but we want to make sure Azrul keeps making it better. And he appears to be doing that. We highly recommend JomComment as the best. It gets our Spiral Island Editors' Choice award, recognizing it for it's highest quality, design, and usefulness. Editor: Richie Sowa's Spiral Island web site: http://www.spiralisland.westkootenayunplugged.com/

I have been trying to find an easy to use streaming video extension for my sites, and after much disappointment with all others, this fantastic AllVideos Bot for Joomla shows up in new extensions. I downloaded the AllVideos bot, uploaded the bot in the standard Joomla way without any issues.

So simple. Then I read the simple docs on how to use it, then set up a YouTube video account, uploaded a video to YouTube, received the code for my first YouTube video. I then copied the video_id code for YouTube use as specified in the docs: {youtube}video_id{/youtube} ---> and then embedded video to my video content using the following Mambot Strings that were made available from my first YouTube video: {youtube}cNzLAT-CdT8{/youtube} I then pasted this string into a new Newsitem, added a menu to access this news item content URL, held my breathe, and wowwweeeee. Video at last, video at last. Fanatstic and hats off to the Developer Fotis Evangelou for this Video Bot. Great stuff! RandyMac