Magento

As some of you might have read, I’ve recently joined the Magento team as a Senior Product Manager.  Anyone who knows me personally can tell you that I’m a big fan of Magento and that I’m passionate about creating great internet products.  So you can imagine how excited I am to be doing what what I love for a company I admire.  I’m now working to channel that passion into building great experiences for our users and our community.

The last couple weeks have been quite busy, and before I signed off to enjoy a relaxing weekend I wanted to introduce myself and let you know what I’ll be working on.  So here goes…

Magento Connect
Our extension marketplace now offers over 1,700 extensions that are built and tested by hundreds of developers around the world.  Magento Connect is growing...fast.  Every day, thousands of users visit the marketplace to find solutions that will take their businesses to the next level.  This growth has led to opportunities that we need to embrace and issues that we need to fix.  A few of you might be aware of an effort underway (which we’ve dubbed internally as “Connect 2.0") to bring our marketplace to the next level.  Now that I’m heading up Magento Connect, I’ll be sure to keep you updated on what changes to expect and how you can respond.  I’d also recommend following our new Twitter account, @MagentoConnect to stay informed.

I want you to know that I’ll be managing the upcoming changes with great care.  There are hundreds of developers around the world who depend on Magento Connect to literally keep the lights on.  Any major changes need to be made with this reality in mind.  I’ve personally called several developers in the USA and Europe to introduce myself and solicit feedback (survey data can only tell me so much).  There is a lot of excitement out there, and I think our community will be very pleased with some of the updates we’ll make in the near future.  I’ll be posting many blog entries about Magento Connect in the weeks and months ahead

Developer Community
Another initiative we have in place is to further empower and organize our community, which now numbers over 167,000 members across four continents.  Magento’s vibrant community is part of what makes the company unique and there is a lot that can be done to build upon this momentum.  A few near-term opportunities include clearer communication, on-demand training, and building processes that better enable our developers to improve our platform.  Please reach out to me with your ideas about how to continue making Magento’s open-source community one of the most unique in the world. 

Several “Top Secret” Initiatives
This year, Magento will be launching a few new products that our users are going to love.  These products are in stealth mode right now so I can’t provide any details, but rest assured we’ll be updating you as they are released via the Magento Blog, our Twitter account, and our Newsletter.  Be sure to stay tuned for more updates.

So, there it is, my first post to the Magento Blog!  If you have any questions, you’re always free to contact me via email (tim -at- varien.com) or my personal twitter account.  I’m looking forward to working with all of you in the future.