Forum OpenACS Q&A: Re: New blurb for the home page

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3: Re: New blurb for the home page (response to 1)
Posted by Jade Rubick on 01/29/04 07:23 PM
I talked with Dave about this about a week ago. I agree strongly with both of you.

What's most missing from the OpenACS main page is WHY THE HECK WOULD I WANT TO USE OPENACS? (sorry for the caps)

I've written up some preliminary stuff on this at:

http://rubick.com:8002/openacs/book/why_openacs

(registration required)

Dave said I could put up a preliminary "Why OpenACS" page and we could link to it prominently. I think that's a good idea (and others could edit that as they like). But I agree with Chris and Joel that the front page could be substantially improved.

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4: Re: New blurb for the home page (response to 3)
Posted by Joel Aufrecht on 01/29/04 09:06 PM
I think that's the key, and I feel stupid now for not realizing it.  Our first paragraph has to describe why to use OpenACS IN TERMS OF WHAT IT DOES THAT OTHER PACKAGES DON'T.  The basic test here is to come up with something that is a good reason and could not be on other sites.  For instance, "scalable" and "platform" and "open source" are all good and do differentiate OpenACS, but even all together they're not unique.  What is unique and positive about OpenACS?
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5: Re: New blurb for the home page (response to 4)
Posted by Malte Sussdorff on 02/02/04 11:54 AM
what is unique and positive about OpenACS?
  • Large, active and open community
  • One CORE with easy access to new modules (in contrast to PHP based solutions).
  • Sophisticated API for quick development of websites (formbuilder, database and permissions)
  • Many packages ready to go (read: Click install and it will download everything for you).
  • Prepackaged vertical solutions for specific markets: .LRN, .WRK
  • Proven to work reliably in enterprise scale websites.
  • Large diversity of uses (E-Commerce, CMS, Intranet, Courseware Management).
  • Community centric with a focus on easy interaction between users (RSS, Notifications, Jabber, Forums, Blogging, ETP (Homepages), File-Sharing, Group Calendar).
That's just what jumped my head at the moment. But for things like that it is better to brainstorm with more people in the room.