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Many of you have sent us some wonderful messages over the past year telling us how much you love JomSocial and how it has changed the way you manage and interact with your online communities. Your words of encouragement are such a great booster for us and inspires us to work even harder to make JomSocial the #1 social networking component for Joomla-powered websites.

We LOVE hearing your stories, reading your feedback and receiving your emailed testimonials...so much so, that we thought of a pretty unique way to immortalize them all.
INow granted, words are cool...but we want to see those faces!  :)  We want you to tell us why you love JomSocial...video style! We want YOU to be the star of our new JomSocial Video Testimonial Contest.

Shape5 released their long-awaited JomSocial template, Elegance, today.

Elegance is available in either a  light or dark theme and includes custom extensions as well as a new Kunena theme.

Check it out here.

If you have been following our twitter, at http://twitter.com/JomSocial , you might have caught the fact that the latest build of JomSocial has entered a public beta testing stage. By 'public', I mean, all our existing customers can download and install it right now.

So, the big question is, what's new ? There are a couple of new interesting features waiting for you. Here are just some of them.

Adding to the ever-growing list of 3rd party developers who have released JomSocial community plugins, apps & themes the past 9 months, template clubs JoomlaXTC.com and Gavickpro.com have just released new JomSocial templates and plugins of their own.

1.) JoomlaXTC's Ecolife is a "...ground breaking new template that has been handcrafted to be Eco-Friendly, feature filled & graphically stunning. This template comes bundled with many extra features & extra stylings for some of the most popular Joomla! components."

In addition to the many layout & module position options that come standard in EcoLife, you'll also get:

    * BlogYou Theme Overides for MyBlog (*MyBlog is a separate purchase)
    * JomSocial EcoLife Theme--12 theme variations
    * Kunena Forum EcoLife Theme
    * Seyret Video EcoLife Theme
    * Jom Comment Theme Overides (*Jom Comment is a separate purchase)

PlUS these Featured Extensions:

    * NewsPro Version 2.5 *
    * Seyret Video Wall *
    * J-Cal Pro 2 Event Wall *
    * JomSocial Avatar Wall--This module gives you the power to display JomSocial Avatars with your custom CSS and HTML in a module position. Display your users avatars with your own templates limited only by your imagination. Its the perfect tool for developers with custom styles in mind. Along with the custom layout the module can display columns and grids as well as scrolling walls for sliders and slideshows!

EcoLife (and its featured extensions) is now available to all JoomlaXTC club members. It will be on sale  September 20 to everyone else for just $39 (price is only for EcoLife template...JoomlaXTC extensions are an extra fee if you do not belong to their club).

Please visit www.joomlaxtc.com for more information.

2.) Gavickpro's elveSocial is a light, pastel-flavoured JomSocial template that "...will turn your online community interface into an elegantly JomSocial-integrated and superiorly designed website from the GavickPro Design Team."

Some highlights of this template are as follows:

    * Tableless design and 100% css based.
    * Disable option for main body appearance on front page.
    * Option of module as component by setting module on main body position.
    * Option of Column position to left or right display.
    * Configurable Column position width.
    * Configurable Header1 position width.
    * Login and Register buttons options with modalbox effect display.
    * Easy footer content configuration on template parameters.
    * 2 layout options: 2 columns (component + right)  and 1 column (component).
    * All 19 modules are fully collapsible  and more 20 modules positions ready for tabs.

Please visit www.gavickpro.com for more information.

* Both clubs are offering their members $50-OFF coupons good towards the purchase of either JomSocial Standard or  JomSocial Pro!

Big news in the JomSocial apps world this week as 3 new eagerly-awaited chat apps have been released.

First up, there's CometChat (www.cometchat.com) which bills itself as "..the first integrated inline chat script which works straight from your website."

Their website goes on by saying that CometChat will "increase interactivity by allowing your users to chat with their friends/online users and in-exchange keep them on your site.'

Cometchat comes in 3 versions:

Standalone edition

Integrate with your existing social networking or dating or community site.

vBulletin edition
Integrate CometChat with your vBulletin forum.

JomSocial edition
Integrate CometChat with your JomSocial community. 

After installation, your logged-in users will notice a familiar grey toolbar at the bottom of your website/community (CometChat looks almost identical to Facebook's chat/online friends toolbar) From here you'll be able to see which friends are online and engage them in a chat or two. If the chat window is minimized and a new message comes in, CometChat will audibly alert the user that a new message has come in, and a red bubble will appear on the minimized window top--just like Facebook. CometChat also automatically synchronizes your status updates with Jomsocia--including any custom hooks that your modules use.

I have personally tested CometChat on a dev site and I can attest that it works just as advertised! Price: $49; 1 year FREE UPDATES.

For more information about CometChat for JomSocial, please visit them here.

Next up is JBolo!

According to their website, JBolo "..is a really cool extension that will integrate Facebook & Gmail like chat into Joomla Websites."

Features in First Release:
- Integrates Seamlessly with Plain Joomla,  Community Builder or JomSocial
- Module Supports Showing All online users/ Only Friends
- Automatic Purging of Chat Database is supported via Cron Support.
- Gmail style bottom right display of chat boxes
- Keeps chat boxes open and stores state (data) even when pages are browsed/refreshed similar to Facebook
- Displays “Sent at…” after 3 minutes of inactivity
- Displays “X says…” & blinks chat boxes when window is not in focus
- Minimize and close chat boxes

Subscription Options :  6 Months $30  |  12 Months $55

For more information, please visit them here.

And finally, there is Avchat3--video chat software for small & large online communities.

Avchat3 is quite a bit different than the first two programs in that it is a standalone Flash Video Chat Application. Users in the chat can use their web cams and microphones to chat live with one another. The quality can be fully adjusted by the webmaster and access to the audio/video features can be limited.

Admins can log-in as hidden, kick and ban users, view their ip information, join private rooms, view the bandwidth usage, etc... .

AVChat 3 can be seamlessly integrated with your web site so that it looks the same and users will have the same username in the chat and in the web site.

AVChat 3 starts at $95/website. The integrated versions (Joomla/Jomsocial) are available as extras for $49 each.

Visit them here.

We've develop a partner program to help find solutions to the booming JomSocial Economy. JomSocial has been growing in leaps and bounds since it was released early this year. As such, we have been receiving many requests for JomSocial customization.

We have developed the JomSocial Partner Program to match those customization requirements to individuals/companies that can provide them. We've set up a forum for you to post your customization requirements and for companies to browse them and provide the solutions needed. Here is the link: Services Required

PS: I notice there are bug reports in the forums. The forum topic is not for bug reports. Please do not post your bug report in the Service Required forum. You may browse through the entire forums to find the topics and sub-topics more relevant to your queries.

by Meriza

We don't always do this but this time we wanna give it a shot.

If you haven't been following us on Twitter, well I guess it's about time you did! It's a bit early to play Santa in July but we're feeling kind (and generous) lately so we think we could spread the joy by giving away coupons to all our Twitter followers.

Yeah, blink as many times you like but it's true – we're giving away 20% off for all existing and new users of JomSocial!

We have always constantly thinking about how we can add value in what we do everyday here. Doing what we do, we are always on our toes in innovating new ways of producing world class Joomla solutions. Yes, we receive many a praises, and also a fair share of dissatisfactions from our customers but we think it is all part of growing.

In life, we go through stages from learning how to walk to become a full adult with responsibilities, and as a company we are nothing less than that – to grow with the times.

We're proud to announce that UK Big Beat pioneers The Prodigy have chosen JomSocial as their community solution for their official website:  http://theprodigy.com/community

To date, they have sold over 17 million records worldwide and receive thousands of unique visitors each month to their website.

So, whether you're running a small niche website, or a large music mega-site, JomSocial can handle the traffic...and make your community happy!

Want to have even more control over your JomSocial profile pages? Two new commercial 3rd party extensions may be able to help you.

1. Joomlaxi.com's Multiple Profile Type Extension:

from their website:

Features:

• Installs as a component, no hassles for setting it up.
• User can be categorized into Types called ProfileTypes
• You can create unlimited number of ProfileTypes
• Every field of Profile can be assigned to any number of profiles-type or to ALL
• Every ProfileType can be assigned a
  • Template
  • Default Privacy Settings
  • Joomla User Type.
  • Default Avatar
  • Admin Approval Required
  • Allow Template
• User Can edit their own profile type in frontend.
• Allow admin to select which profile type needs admin confirmation.

Visit the Joomlaxi.com website for more information.

2.) Joomduck.com's JomSocial Profile pro Extension

From their website:

JomSocial Profile Pro is an extension similar to Community Builder Profile Pro. It brings the power of visual profile customizing to JomSocial users. With this extension you have endless posibilities of designing JomSocial profile pages and customizing user information layout on them. You have the ability to manage your profile pages visually, as you do it with an usual article.  

Get rid of standard design and layout, create profile pages with unique, non-standard and user-fiendly appearance. The only restriction in customizing a profile page is your own imagination. 

Create profile pages easily and quickly. No more have to deal with CSS stylesheet files, create your custom design and layout directly in Joomla WYSIWYG editor: what you see when you edit a profile page is what you get right after you click the save button.

Insert HTML, PHP, Java or any other code into user profile page (it can be an advertising banner, adsense code, complicated visitor counter, etc.). Even a joomla module can be published.

Create unlimited number of profile pages and let your users choose between them. This is great for social network sites and sites where you have different groups of member with different fields


Visit the Joomduck.com website for more information.