I’m pretty excited, I’ve hopefully found what I call my “Dillsmack”. For those who don’t know who Dillsmack is, his real name is David Dellanave, and he has been the other half of projects with Shoemoney (Jeremy Shoemaker) such as AuctionAds. Not having somebody like this at my disposal has always been a big problem of mine in my opinion. While I feel that I can design and market well, when it comes to true programming, it doesn’t stick. I could outsource various projects, but I want somebody I can trust that I could feel comfortable giving up a portion of the business so they have the same sort of drive I have for it to succeed. With that said, I’d like to welcome “Mubs” to the team.

With this in mind, we’ve quickly took on our first project, TweakMag:

As you can see from the launching soon graphic, the site will be one that specifically targets modifying (”tweaking”) the new Magento eCommerce platform. Magento doesn’t even have a version that should be used in production yet, but there is a ton of hype surrounding the new open source product. We want take advantage of this at an early stage in order to build a strong audience before the real following comes…at least that’s what we’re counting on!

The Process

I’ve personally run into a lot of personal issues and concerns about eCommerce platforms (and blogged about it here), so I started to closely follow the Magento development. I quickly realized that this would be the answer to a lot of problems I had, and I wanted to somehow utilize this early “hunch”. I came up with a concept for providing information on modifying the software, but there was some specific things I wanted to do that I knew weren’t going to work exactly the way I wanted unless I brought in a developer. At this point I ended up finding Mubs (Thanks Travis!), and I ran the idea by him. He thought it was a good one as well, and wanted to be a part of the project.

At this point we decided to get on the phone and brainstorm what was possible to have on the site, then weed out what was not needed, and then prioritize what was left over. Since we are counting on the site being successful due to early hype, it’s important for us to launch quickly. From the list of six content features we wanted to put on the site, we cut this down in half to three for the launch.

Aside from the timing benefit, we cut down a lot of the features for now just because there isn’t a ton of modifying going on just yet. Magento (aka Varien) is in an aggressive timeline for development, so especially at this stage, there is a lot of changing in the code. People are still modifying though, and it’s a great sign for the potential success of TweakMag!

Monetization

We plan on monetizing in a few ways. Obviously we’ll have your standard ads, probably starting off with something like Google AdSense and Text-Link-Ads. We also have some great ideas using some affiliate/referral programs, but integrating it into important content that users will like. This is the best method, and hopefully the most effective…especially when new users start doing some research as Magento continues its development.

Keep Updated

Stay tuned, we’re trying to launch as quick as possible!? If you want an e-mail when we launch, enter it in the form on TweakMag.com. I have a couple other ideas for projects with Mubs, so I hope this is the first of many successful ventures with him.

There are two upcoming eCommerce platforms that I’ve been closely watching development of, and you should be too. Their names are Magento and StoreSuite Shopping Cart Software. Both are currently in development, and not available for download yet. There is a major difference between the two, Magento is a free open-source solution while StoreSuite will have to be purchased. There are obviously pros and cons to each option, some of those being the following:

• Open source allows it to be further enhanced by the community
• Open source is free
• A paid solution comes with personalized technical support, therefore more likely being a more stable solution

Both solutions look very promising as possible options to replace my open source osCommerce solution that I’m running on ActiveTuning. Both StoreSuite and Magento have blogs where you can actively track the latest updates, screencasts, sneak peeks, and news. You can even post your feedback to help point the development in the right direction:

• Store Suite Blog
• Magento Blog

User feedback and company experience has been critical to the development of both applications! Magento has been in development since April, and StoreSuite since July. Since Magento has been in the works for a while longer, there is normally a ton of comments on each blog post they make with opinions, suggestions, feedback, and more. Magento is built by a company named Varien, which is a web development/design firm based out of Los Angeles. The benefit of this is they have a ton of experience in development, a team of good people, and they are also designers. This is great because it seems like other platforms are built be people that only develop, but can’t design. StoreSuite also has a strong background. It is built by a software development firm by the name of Interspire based out of Australia. They’ve built a few different successful online applications and sold millions of dollars worth of them.

I’m not sure yet when we can expect StoreSuite, but Magento will be releasing a beta 1 (preview) any day now (promised by August 31st). Since neither have a version yet for download, I have to base my opinions on what is posted on their sites and blogs.

From initial opinion, StoreSuite looks to be a great install and use right out of the box solution. Mitch created a real-time drag and drop “design mode” which allows you to make all of your design changes through the actual site interface. The best way to explain this is to have you watch the screencast. This is great for people that don’t want to get down and dirty in code just to make simple design changes. StoreSuite also promises a lot of features which help cross-promote markets and generate more sales, such as a smart list of recommended products in a customers shopping cart.

Magento is the eCommerce platform I’m the most excited about to be honest. It looks to be a very very powerful solution with a great team backing it. There are a plethora of features, with a roadmap that gets better and better all the way through Q1 2008. Varien is ensuring to build this with all around goodness, from a powerful backend powered by Zend, to a slick design/easy to use interface, to the highest SEO optimizations and standards. There are so many details that they looked at and are offering solutions for, that you really need to go to their blog and read through all of the posts and feedback to get the best idea of what you can expect. One of the cool features I like is the ability to have a category be a landing page, where you can make it anything you want. This essentially allows you to break out of the eCommerce platform and build the look and feel how you want it.

As I mentioned before, we can expect to see a Magento preview any day now…which I will then make another post with my comments and opinions. I’ll be installing a copy of StoreSuite when it comes out as well, so look for further opinions in the near future. In the meantime, check out the websites for both companies, read their blogs, subscribe to their RSS feeds, and let me know your opinions!