Magento Update - September 10, 2007
We’ve had a great week since releasing the Magento Preview to the world roughly 10 days ago. The response has been overwhelming and the feedback has been great. The numbers speak for themselves, with over 7,000 downloads and 1100+ registered users posting 2500+ messages in this period. The excitement and passion for the product is truly remarkable. We’d like to thank the wonderful community for accepting Magento so warmly.
We’ll post periodic updates on the blog (such as this), so subscribe to the RSS feed to stay in the loop.
Development
- A light installation of Magento will be available through the SVN in the next couple of days.
- The translation process will be finalized this week and instructions on how to get started will be posted.
- Paypal implementation is expected to be finalized (Express Checkout and Paypal Direct).
- The team is currently reviewing the project roadmap and planning future development cycles and releases. Information about future releases will be posted in the coming weeks.
Community Site
- 9 new screencasts are now online, including: Landing Pages, Product Comparisons, Related Products, Configurable Products, Search, Tags, Tier Pricing, Upsells, and Grouped Products. If you’d like us to produce a screencast on a topic that we have not covered before, please let us know .
- International forums are up and running. The German forum has been especially active with over 200 posts.
- Content on the Wiki has been expanding. We recommend you check out the Designing for Magento article if you wish to learn about Magento’s template structure. We also started compiling a comprehensive list of International eCommerce Regulations. If you are an international eCommerce merchant, please feel free to contribute.
The community site will continue to expand in the next few weeks with a number of large scale projects scheduled. As always, if you have any ideas or would like to suggest a feature, please let us know .
Finally, we’d like to give you a breakdown of the events that took place the night before Magento’s launch, as written by Udi Shamay (a senior project manager here at Varien).
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You had to be there. I mean here, at Varien, hours before Magento went from late night conversations and scribbled ideas to our own software application. The task of meeting the deadline wasn’t easy as we promised to strike by the end of August and somewhere in the world the clock was moving fast towards September 1st . So here’s a recap of the most important day and night in Varien’s history:
August 30th 7:00: Arrive at work prepared for a very long day
August 30th 10:00: Team meeting and final tasks handed out. Coffee cup #1
August 30th 13:00: QA team finalizes testing and we’re ready to package the product.
August 30th 15:00: Installation Wizard ready for testing. Coffee cup #2 and 3 just for quenching the thirst.
August 30th 17:00: We’re all still here. People making calls to loved ones ’don’t wait up’.
August 30th 20:00: Installer issues. Need to repackage the product.
August 30th 23:00: Still all here. Waiting for the installer to be completed. Coffee cup #4 is consumed.
August 31st 2:00: Announcement by core dev team that this is it. Turns out to be a False Alarm. Coffee cups 5 & 6 are drank simultaneously.
August 31st 4:00: INTERNET DOWN. This is not a drill. Troops prepare to relocate HQ.
August 31st 4:30: The internet Gods take mercy and internet is back up.
August 31st 6:00: Final testing. Community is restless. Number of Speculative Comments on blog are overwhelming. Out of Coffee - switching to Tea.
August 31st 7:00: Finally ready for launch. Files are being uploaded to the server as the team watches.
August 31st 8:00: Flip the Switch. Magento is live. Team stays to witness first reactions from the community.
August 31st 11:00: No big issues reported. 28 hrs later we call it a day.
Moshe hard at work ~ 3:40 AM
The team passes time as another build is pushed ~ 4:45 AM
Udi pouring the champagne (a few days later)
Los Angeles Team celebrates
1gamelodge from Brisbane, Qld, Australia|posted September 11 2007
Well Done Guys!! your doing a great job!
and thank your for making it open source!
2Tate from Hobson|posted September 11 2007
Magento was hyped, and for good reason. It’s a brilliant CMS/E-Commerce Platform and I look forward to working with it in the future.
I’m really pleased to see commercial enterprises backing real-world, open source projects. It ultimately benefits everyone.
PS: I wish I had three displays :(
3Roy Andre |posted September 11 2007
Doh, where is the mandatory java-lamp?
Anyway, great to have these blogs to read. What about having a page where you have a small presentation of all the staff, so that you get even more.. well not too personal.. but, hmm. Arh, you know what I mean!
People like to work with people. And people normally work even better with people they know how looks - and least not when they know how many LCD screens they are using.
4RoyRubin from Los Angeles, CA|posted September 11 2007
@aFFi - We’ll put a page soon introducing the team. In the meantime, you can see some of the Varien staff here - http://www.varien.com/family (although its a very small part of the team).
5Sugoi from Hobson|posted September 11 2007
Hellz yeah!
I’ve checked out the preview the other day. You guys so rule. Magento is finally a good commerce project. it’s exactly the way you’d expect a good one to be ^^
Is there a fanclub somewhere I can join?
Keep it up!
6neurone from Paris - France|posted September 11 2007
Hey hey ... hard work, but as you feel, we are all behind you ... I was personnaly waiting part of night behind my computer presing my F5 button or the update
Just a small comment about community ... The french one can be found here : http://www.fragento.com
Arround 150 message, not as well as german, but we are working on it
7WisdOMbooks from Kolkata (Calcutta) - INDIA|posted September 11 2007
I mean:
everything is BRIGHT and SHINING with Magento,
a part…
... the flash of your camera !
My ... ! Look what you have made
!
out of the most BRILLIANT team on the planet:
a bunch of DARK-n-GLOOMY-faced zombies
Come on ! Get a brighter camera and
! ! !
show the world who you REALLY are:
the true LIGHTs & STARs of eComm v2.0
8NickL from Hobson|posted September 11 2007
Team Magento,
You guys seem like an excellent team, Congrats on reaching your launch date and all your work thus far on what looks to be a very promising project.
However,
You guys have YET to seen the rewards!
I hope you all keep your enthusiasm for this project as I for one am Really excited about its future. You are on to something really innovative here, and as a designer and developer I couldn’t be more happy that not only have I found a community with a vision for something new, but it also gives me the ability to offer more to the small businesses owners an entrepreneurs who otherwise may not have been able to afford innovative solutions like this. I look forward to contributing and thanks for all your hard work.
- NickL
9Ross from Scarborough, North Yorkshire, UK|posted September 11 2007
Thanks for the update, it’s nice to have a concise overview of what’s been happening since the launch. I guess now is a good time to leverage off the good response, so keep it up, we can sense the momentum building.
Enjoyed reading the launch story (especially since I was one of those waiting to see what would happen). As I’m sure will be proved out in time, it was history in the making! Well done to all the team.
10Joe |posted September 11 2007
The translation news sounds really great.
Thanks, Joe.
11John gao from Hobson|posted September 11 2007
I keep my eye on this site from 1th sep. I registered (a domain) this domain is great I could building a chinese magento BBS.
12RoyRubin from Los Angeles, CA|posted September 11 2007
John - I suggest you review our trademark guidelines for use of the Magento trademark in domain names - http://www.magentocommerce.com/license/
Thanks!
13Qumer Mumtaz |posted September 12 2007
Hi
U Guys did a gr8 job. Thnx 4 working so looooooooooooooong and so hard.
1473inches from Germany, Hannover|posted September 12 2007
Nice to read how it was from your point of view.
15Bitconscious from Hobson|posted September 12 2007
Great product! After some small issues during installation, Magento is a very nice piece of software with great features (and more coming in the next beta!).
I can’t wait for digital goods
Thanks!
1673inches from Germany, Hannover|posted September 12 2007
Nice to see the day from your point of view. Thanks!
17Jay garcia from Hobson|posted September 13 2007
Awesome stuff. Glad to see i’m not the only person using 3 monitors to develop
18Scott from Northwest Ohio|posted September 15 2007
Everyone looks great, considering such lack of sleep!