pimg src="http://www.magentocommerce.com/images/uploads/connect_logo-3.jpg" style="border: 0;" alt="image" width="351" height="62" / /p p We#8217;re proud to announce that, later today, we#8217;ll be launching the beta version of our new a href="http://www.magentoconnect.com" title="Magneto Connect"Magneto Connect/a design.nbsp; This new design isn#8217;t the #8220;Magento Connect 2.0#8221; project you#8217;ve heard about, but rather a series of design upgrades that will help to prepare the way for MC 2.0, as well as create a better user experience for users and developers. /p p In this redesign, we#8217;ve enhanced several existing tools, as well as introduced new features that will bring more merchants into the marketplace.nbsp; We believe these improvements will drive a new era of growth for Magento Connect, and ultimately, the more merchants we have using Magento Connect, the more it enriches our growing magento-connect extension developer community.nbsp; /p p Here is an overview of some of the major changes.nbsp; If you have any feedback or ideas, please feel free to contact us a href="http://www.twitter.com/magentoconnect" title="@magetoconnect"@magetoconnect/a on Twitter. /p p bNew Logo amp; Heading/b br / We now have a new MC logo, and our new tag line is:nbsp; ?The Official Marketplace for Magento Extensions? /p p bSearch!!/b br / That?s right, the new MC design has a local search feature in the right column.nbsp; Even better, the search results can be sorted and filtered to help users find exactly what they#8217;re looking for. /p p b#8220;Community" amp; #8220;Commercial#8221; are now more simply known as #8220;Free#8221; amp; #8220;Paid#8221;/b br / One small change you#8217;ll notice is new rewording of #8220;community#8221; and #8220;commercial#8221; extensions as #8220;free#8221; and #8220;paid#8221;.nbsp; We made this change to prevent users from mistaking community extensions with the community edition of Magento.nbsp; As for ?Core?, we?ll be rolling out a certified-extension process and our core extensions will be first in line to earn that distinction.nbsp; Developers will be able to pay to have their extensions certified in a future release.nbsp; Moving forward, whenever you see the word ?Community? in Magento Connect, it will refer to the Community (open source) edition. /p p Ibmprovements to the Upload Process/b br / Several improvements have been made to the front end and back end so that developers and users have a better experience overall. /p p bFeatured Extensions/b br / This is similar to what we had on the former homepage, but the design is upgraded and it will now become a paid placement to help developers promote their extensions.nbsp; There is also a ?mini featured? box on each of the category pages to help developers get even more exposure.nbsp; The extensions randomly rotate upon each page refresh, so that no matter how many extensions are featured, each one receives the same amount of exposure. /p p bCommunity Advertising/b br / We?ve included a 250x150 display ad banner in the right column and will be rolling out a self-service advertising offering to certain approved developers. /p p bNew Styles for Product Icons amp; Images/b br / To give our marketplace a more consistently high-end feel, all extension icons will automatically receive rounded corners and a subtle gradient.nbsp; Existing images will still look good, but developers also have the option of designingn for this new creative style to help make their extensions stand out even more.nbsp; /p p bA more AJAXy sorting amp; filtering experience/b br / Drilling down to find the extension you?re looking for is now a lot easier and (in many cases) won?t even require a page refresh. /p p bReviews with Single-Sign On Support/b br / We?ve worked closely with Echo (formerly ?JS-Kit?) to implement an integrated reviews product with Magento Connect.nbsp; I love this product because it support single-sign on and allows developers to comment on reviews (for a much more engaging experience).nbsp; All existing reviews will be imported and although Echo is a hosted solution, we will continue to own our reviews data. /p p bNew Taxonomy Categories!/b br / We?ve introduced nearly 20 new categories, including ?Personalization?, ?SEO?, and ?Marketing?.nbsp; This is very important update for both users and search engines. /p p bDeveloper Info Pages/b br / Click on a developer?s name from the search results or extension-description page and you?ll come to a new page that shows their extensions, as well as an area where users can review a developer.nbsp; Developers can enhance these pages by logging into their #8216;my admin#8217; and uploading their avatar, bio, and contact details. /p p bWhat would you like to do?nbsp; (?WWYLTD?)/b br / Sometimes, new users know what they need, but don?t know what extension or category to look for.nbsp; This section will allow us to associate certain extensions to solutions such as ?help me build better relationships with my customers?.nbsp; /p p Now, this may sound like a lot, but we#8217;re just getting started.nbsp; Expect many more changes in the weeks and months ahead, including: br / * Certified Developer Program (coming soon to an exclusive group of developers). br / iThe program includes benefits such as premier listings, an enterprise license, and access to promotional tools./i br / * Improvements to the upload process br / * Extension encryption br / * Certified extensions br / * Support for Enterprise extensions /p p Everyone will be able to browse the a href="http://www.magentoconnect.com" title="new marketplace"new marketplace/a once it goes live, but in the meantime, here#8217;s a sneak peek.nbsp; Enjoy! /p p img src="http://www.magentocommerce.com/images/uploads/Magento_connect_redesign-2.png" style="border: 0;" alt="image" width="669" height="847" / /pbr /hr style="border:none; background:#bbb; height:1px; overflow:hidden;"/table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0"trtd valign="top" width="90" align="left"a href="http://twitter.com/magento"img src="http://www.magentocommerce.com/img/magento_on_twitter.png" //a/tdtd valign="top" width="220" style="padding:0;"strongfont size="-2"FROM THE MAGENTO TWITTER FEED/font/strong/spanpa href="http://twitter.com/magento/statuses/11755585945"RT @alainveuve: Lindt Spr?ngli Shop France online based on #magento - more countries to follow - http://shop.lindt.com/fr/ - http://bi .../a/ppa href="http://twitter.com/magento"strongfont size="-2"Follow Magento on Twitter ?/font/strong/a/p/tdtdimg src="http://www.magentocommerce.com/img/clear.gif" width="10px" /img src="http://www.magentocommerce.com/img/feed_separator.png" //tdtd valign="top" width="90" align="left"a href="http://www.magentocommerce.com/support/magento-user-guide-book"img src="http://www.magentocommerce.com/img/magento_ebook.png" //a/tdtd valign="top" width="220" style="padding:0;"strongfont size="-2"NOW AVAILABLE/font/strongpa href="http://www.magentocommerce.com/support/magento-user-guide-book"The Official Magento User Guide by Varien is here!/a/ppa href="http://www.magentocommerce.com/support/magento-user-guide-book"strongfont size="-2"Get your eBook today ?/font/strong/a/p/td/tr/tablediv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/magento?a=Hgjl1x76jyY:SG7_AcIB9SE:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/magento?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/magento?a=Hgjl1x76jyY:SG7_AcIB9SE:7Q72WNTAKBA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/magento?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/magento?a=Hgjl1x76jyY:SG7_AcIB9SE:V_sGLiPBpWU"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/magento?i=Hgjl1x76jyY:SG7_AcIB9SE:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/magento/~4/Hgjl1x76jyY" height="1" width="1"/

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