We have been so busy implementing new features in MageBridge, and supporting our customers building smooth webshops, that - as always with techies - marketing was way behind. We just updated our showcase-page of MageBridge shops - ditching some old entries, and adding some new. And there are some conclusions to make while running through the list as well.
The list grows
Our previous showcase-page showed about 24 shops, but the actual number of shops using MageBridge is way higher (in the thousands). Updating the showcase-listing seemed like a good thing, but this also requires us to check thoroughly if MageBridge is used in a proper way, create a screenshot, etcetera. We just released a new listing of showcases, showing 109 shops using MageBridge. It took some work but we think it's worth the effort.
Custom component
The previous listing was based on our own SimpleLists extension, however, this required us to do a lot of manual work: Resize images and upload them, a lot of clicking. So instead of using SimpleLists, we built our own custom component instead, to get the job done quicker over time.
MageBridge is international
Running down the showcase-listing, you can see that MageBridge usage is spread all-over the world: There are French, German and Taiwanese shops, but also Australian, Czech, USA and Dutch shops.
YOOtheme is popular
Relatively a high number of MageBridge shops is using YOOtheme templates - this is probably due to the flexibility of the Warp framework, but also to the fact that we supply various MageBridge template-patches for YOOtheme templates, so that CSS-designers can focus on customization instead of getting the basics div properly aligned. (And we are also glad to support YOOtheme templates like this, because their usage of the jQuery framework causes us a lot less pain than MooTools-based templates.)
That said, there are also numerous MageBridge shops based on custom designs or other templating frameworks. Quite a few customers based their shop on JoomlArt templates, while we are not supplying template-patches for those templates. It proves that MageBridge shops can still be built using a bit of CSS-tuning - and actually quite fast as well: Some shops are finished within 2 months after first setup - try to beat that with Magento.
Shops with a story
Another thing to note is that MageBridge shops seem to be more than just a simple shop: A lot of sites include background stories, white papers, extensive documentation, FAQ, galleries - all content made possible with the Joomla! CMS. It proves one of the main benefits of MageBridge. Instead of working with a CMS that lacks enterprise shop-functionality, or working with a enterprise-shop that lacks user-friendly CMS-features, MageBridge combines the best of both.
About the author
Jisse Reitsma is the founder of Yireo, extension developer, developer trainer and 3x Magento Master. His passion is for technology and open source. And he loves talking as well.
