We need a Marketplace here eventually
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We need a marketplace here on the forums for the purpose of selling or buying services such as plugins, and of course themes among other things. I think this would be very beneficial to the community.
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Good idea! I bet having a marketplace would boost the incentive to creative polished plugins and themes. In fact, I'd scrape up a few bucks to pay for some simple features to be made into plugins.
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What happens when a plugin creator vanishes off the face of the earth and doesn't fix bugs in said plugin, but plugin is still available to buy, who should be responsible for that and maintaining that sort of thing?
Free & Premium plugins may work, but it really depends on pricing structures etc. Magento connect has this issue, you can download free modules that change a lot, and at the same time, others want £600-£700 for something that does very little. Then there's all the people whom sell the modules on their own website to avoid fees etc.
Potentially a good idea, needs thought before just charging for apps, especially from an open source forum perspective.
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I see potential within the idea of a new category "Market" where users may offer money for new plugins with defined functionality.
So not money for the right to use a plugin, but a bonus motivation for the potential creators.
What I don't like is some sort of premium plugins you have to pay to use, but that's not my decision
Since NodeBB is open source I think this would rather be in the devs mind than sth. like "I've written a plugin, if you want to use it you have to pay for it".
A negative point is that there is no such system (yet) besides reputation to mark users as trustworthy, so I couldn't mark xyz as so. who doesn't pay after I made the requested plugin.
Maybe it'd be more nice to have a complete board about this instead of just a category. Then the reputation would be a valid measure of trust. In this case (once the feature is available) it could be an invite-only board, therefor it's not as easy to just create a new user once reputation is negative.
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If there's a rating system and reviews for paid plugins, it would help with quality control.
Free plugins are great, and if I get around to being able to make one it'll be free unless it took massive amounts of effort. But money does motivate people to make stuff.
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Good points here.
Well, I have a few things I'm working on right now, some free, some paid. So as soon as something here is approved, then I'll figure out licenses and such. -
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.
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@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.
So true...
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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
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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.
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@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.
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@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!
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@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.
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@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
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@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!) -
@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.
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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
