September 2008

2008-09 Joomla! Community Magazine

Joomla! Community Magazine - Community

Event: Joomla! Day Brasil 2008

Joomla!'s GSoC Student, Flavio Kubota, shares his experience presenting

Joomla! Day Brasil 2008 was held on August 16, 2008. For the second time, the event happened in São Paulo. There were eight speakers and more than 120 participants were in attendance.

This year was very popular. Already, one month before the event, there were no more vacancies for any more participants. The public was present was mostly developers and designers who use Joomla! in the company where they work. Participants attended the event in order to exchange information to get more knowledge.

Most of the talks showed success stories of Joomla! in large portals in Brazil. The speakers showed how Joomla! core and extensions were used successfully to meet the needs of customers. One of the biggest advantages of using the Joomla!, discussed by speakers, is ease of use, both for those who develop the layout of the site, as well as for those responsible for site content.

A fact that drew a great deal of attention was the number of cases of government agencies using the Joomla! on their sites. All cases were highly praised.

There were also talks that addressed marketing and Joomla!, security, templates, major extensions for Joomla! 1.5 and why one should consider using Joomla! 1.5.

The three Brazilian students of Joomla!'s Google Summer of Code program were invited to present their projects. Because of the location of the event, only Flavio Kubota could attend. Flavio presented Version Control for Joomla! and spoke of the features that the component will bring. Many participants are interested in the project and asked the date that the component would be available, since version control is a real need of businesses in which they work.

At the end of the event, the discussion focused on how to strengthen Joomla! communities in Brazil.

According to the organizers, there were about 300 people wanting to attend the event. That was a surprise to all and showed how the Joomla! is growing in Brazil. Ronildo Costa was the main organizer of the event and commented on the event:

"Despite the hard work, everything work fine... and it has overcome my expectations, the participation of people have been much greater than last year, and also a greater number of companies was interested in participating. And that motivates me much for coming years. It is very good when you do something that people enjoy and encourage."

Next year, organizers promised a larger meeting place and Joomla! Day may even be more than one day. The next day, there was much praise due to the great success that was the Joomla! Brazil Day. Let's wait for the next edition of the event in the coming year that promises to be as successful as this year's event.