We need a Marketplace here eventually

trevor

I put donation in one of my plugins quite some time ago, never received any. I'm not complaining, just pointing out that in the current state, people aren't willing to pay a beer for the developer to show their appreciation of the hard work he has done.

So true...

Carl

I'm not sure if this would be good seen as the community is quite small and growing so we don't want all the good/useful plugins or themes to be premium. Then suddenly people loose the motivation to provide free plugins, maybe people could sell 1 premium product on a marketplace for every free products that they share. That way we will still have a constant flow of "free" products.

For example if someone makes 3 free plugins they can put 3 plugins on the marketplace.

Just my 2 cents

? Offline

A broader question: what's it going to take to make NodeBB ultra successful? That's a tough one. I bet good plugins help, and the modular nature of NodeBB is awesome and unique.

Facebook captured a lot of what used to be done in forums, but outside of that I can see NodeBB and Discourse battling it out in the next couple years (along with Vanilla and Xenforo). Discourse has venture capital funding I believe, so that's a leg up. But NodeBB is too cool to lose. Maybe an angel investor will throw some money its way? @julian and @psychobunny , I'll let you know if any super rich capitalists here in SF are looking for a project to fund. I actually thought about going into venture capital after finishing business school a few years ago, but it's too schmoozy and high-pressure. That cash woulda come in handy now.

Paul

@Kamal-Patel said:

A broader question: what's it going to take to make NodeBB ultra successful?

It will have to become MUCH easier to install.

? Offline

@Paul Yeah, not as easy to install as most all of the PHP-based forums, but easier to install than Discourse. I started installing nodebb a couple days ago and have had some hiccups, mostly due to my lack of familiarity though.

The wiki is pretty clear, but I guess I need super-duper step-by-step-by-step clear!

a_5mith

@Kamal-Patel once you work out the main points, I've found nodebb no harder to install than php software. Make sure everything is up to date, ensure you've installed all dependencies. Clone the git and run the setup.

Compared to running the installer, adding in MySQL details, setting up admin account, the only real difference is using terminal rather than a web page.

? Offline

@a_5mith Agreed -- using the terminal is the one thing I stumbled on a bit. My only hiccups have been:

-Still can't get reverse proxy to work for some reason, can't tell if I screwed something up.
-The restart button on the control panel doesn't seem to work, which threw me off a little.
-Sometimes my home page doesn't load. Again, not sure if it's something I screwed up.

Overall, I'm quite happy with NodeBB. Not even quite, I'll upgrade it to "extremely" happy

psychobunny

@Kamal-Patel said:

A broader question: what's it going to take to make NodeBB ultra successful? That's a tough one. I bet good plugins help, and the modular nature of NodeBB is awesome and unique.

Facebook captured a lot of what used to be done in forums, but outside of that I can see NodeBB and Discourse battling it out in the next couple years (along with Vanilla and Xenforo). Discourse has venture capital funding I believe, so that's a leg up. But NodeBB is too cool to lose. Maybe an angel investor will throw some money its way? @julian and @psychobunny , I'll let you know if any super rich capitalists here in SF are looking for a project to fund. I actually thought about going into venture capital after finishing business school a few years ago, but it's too schmoozy and high-pressure. That cash woulda come in handy now.

Haha. Wouldn't mind one or two ultra-rich capitalists to swing by Right now we're just working hard and making a living off stuff like custom plugins, themes, and we have a handful of great customers on our paid hosting platform. They're all aware that it's Beta but we treat them really well (or at least as well as we can!)

Nicolab

@Schamper said:

I put donation in one of my plugins quite some time ago, never received any. I'm not complaining, just pointing out that in the current state, people aren't willing to pay a beer for the developer to show their appreciation of the hard work he has done.

Idem, I created some open source projects, never received 1c, Yet every day there are downloads. Luckily it's not my business model.

pkiller

Hi there. Im usualy not very active on forums or other things similar to forums. But just to make an example of a good business model for devs:

From a marketing experts point of view:

Make a plugin/theme everyone likes (Advertising)
Make the plugin/theme free (Advertising)
Tell them you can make plugins/themes for money (Advertising)
Take jobs, make money (Income)

As for a marketplace:

make everything what is in the marketplace free
pictures and descriptions of every plugin/theme
Links to devs/contacts where you can order a personalized theme/plugin