“Nice blog you’ve got there. But, ehm… I couldn’t help but notice you are using WordPress. To blog about Joomla. That’s funny, haha. What’s that all about?”
Occasionaly, someone who reads a post (and hopefully more than one) discovers that Joomla & More – a blog dedicated to the CMS Joomla – runs on WordPress. I’ll admit that it’s uncommon to say the least. But all things happen for a reason. And today I’m going to share the reason why Joomla & More is one of the few – if not the only – WordPress powered blog about Joomla. I’ll be blaming you somewhere halfway, so pay attention. 😉
Joomla & More just… happened.
The first and most import reason is that Joomla & More wasn’t planned. I didn’t say to myself: “You know what’s cool? Blogging about Joomla. Let’s do that. Let’s do it on WordPress, haha!”Far from it. Back in the days, it was my personal blog where I posted mundane things. I just used the blog because I liked to write something from time to time. Basically, to talk to myself.
Then, my job happened. This meant I had to learn new things, and not all of them could be found in books. Writing things down helps me remember, so I remembered my blog and thought: “I’ll just takes notes there.” And so I did. I wrote some stuff on Windows servers (I started out mainly as a system admin / support guy). And one day I write one or two articles about Joomla, because I was asked to “build a site using Joomla.”
I wrote those Joomla posts for myself, and just posted them as a reminder. But when I opened my blog a few weeks later, I noticed a very sharp increase in readers ( I like stats. Do you like stats?). They were coming for my Joomla stuff. This pattern repeated when I posted a few more posts. Suddenly, I was getting in touch with Joomla people.
It was spiraling out of control! My Joomla posts seemed to be drawing a bit of attention and after a few months I said to myself: “Steven, you need a domain. It can’t hurt, right?” Still relatively new to the Open Source world I used sharp deduction skills. I was writing about Joomla, and also other topics. Joomla and More. That would be my domain name. Best idea ever!
At the time I didn’t think people would find it strange to see a WordPress blog about Joomla. I didn’t really care; I was writing for myself and while I liked the interest in my writing I didn’t have big plans for the blog.
Of course, the blog has grown over time as I’ve kept using it to share information that I personally find interesting. It now hosts a solid 250 posts of which most are articles. A majority of them are Joomla articles. I am going out on a limb here, and going to say that it’s one of the bigger Joomla blogs out there.
While the relative succes of Joomla & More could have been a reason to migrate it to Joomla, the main reasons I don’t are the same reasons that made me start posting here in the first place.
- I am mostly still writing for myself. Because I enjoy it, I want to memorize something and it’s my way of “contributing”.
- I don’t have to do anything other than write semi-regularly (and pay for my domain name)- which is perfect for me. I dpn’t tend to focus well. When I open one of my Joomla sites, there’s alsways something there that says “HEY. LOOK AT ME.” An update which is pending, an outdated PHP version that’s annoying me, a new module I want to install… I’ve got none of that on WordPress.com
Don’t get me wrong
Because of the reasons above (ease of use – limited costs – focus on writing) I’ve decided to stick with Joomla & More as it is. But that doesn’t mean I don’t love Joomla. I hope the content of Joomla & More speaks for itself in that regard. When it comes to building a site, I’d pick Joomla over WordPress any day. Joomla & More and WordPress.com are just the best possible match, that’s all.
It’s just that, for my needs (a simple, distraction free place to blog about my favorite topic) WordPress.com just happens to be the best match. Strange? Maybe. Unusual? I’ll give you that.
It’s your fault, too
But it’s not all my fault. Sure, I might be a tiny bit lazy. I might choose the “easy route for blogging”. But you’ve been enabling me. By checking out my blog. By reading it and commenting on it. This encouraged me and made me believe that people had a use for what came up in my mind. It made Joomla & More into “a thing” where I’d otherwise have forgotten about it if you hadn’t shown up at the doorstep, saying “Hey, this is interesting! This is a shady neighbourhood but this library looks nice!” and you started reading and sharing my articles.
And I’m gratefull for that. For the people who look at the content and not at the format (it’s debatable whether “throw blog posts at at site is really a format) of Joomla & More. Thanks for being my reader(s).