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This is the second article in the series on what I did to build out Downwind.com.au. Click on the follow link to view article 1.
The best part about Joomla is that it has a very powerful area called "components". These allow you extend the functionality of the system enormously and thousands of them are available. All of the components are available via joomla.org and click on the extensions menu. Let me go through some of the components that I have installed and why I did so.
 For a start you get some standard components such as "banners" that allow you to setup banner advertising for potential advertisers on your site. This is a brilliant little component that just works. A couple of the other standard components are contacts that allow you to segment how you want people to reach you and polls for doing surveys and other fun things with your members.
So what components have I installed?
Kunena Forum - this is a fully functional forum and once again the best part about it is the price tag of $0. This means that my members can now have some discussions with each other which means they are more likely to return to the site.
JomSocial - this is an absolutely brilliant component that allows you to provide members with a facebook like experience on your site. The professional addition costs $149 but in my opinion it's worth every penny.
MyBlog & JomComment - both these components were developed by the JomSocial team and will empower your members to write their own blogs on your site and place comments at the end of articles. Myblog costs $35 and JomComment $20 so they are unlikely to break the bank.
Sigisiu - yes I know that it's a strange name but the German developers have done an incredible job in putting together a system that allows you to create directories and other database driven systems for your members with no development experience. The best thing about it is that it also has a charging system built into it that links directly into paypal. The price is $0.
Mighty Extensions - when I first came across mighty extensions I was a little confused about what it actually did. The reason for this is that it just does so much! For instance, I installed the membership component and I can now automatically bill members for access to different services in my site.
I'm now getting into their shopping mall commerce solution which would have to be the most flexible piece of software I've ever seen. For example, you can run a shopping mall and members can have their own shops within it. You can then charge them a percentage per transaction, a fixed amount or a stack of different ways. The commerce solution will set you back around 200 euros but from my perspective it looks well worth it.
The total outlay for my site has been around $500 dollars and I now have a professional looking site with all of the features that any of the major websites would be proud to incorporate.
The next article will go into what I've done on the traffic and more importantly revenue side. See you then!
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The flagship site, Model Insider (http://www.ModelInsider.com) represents over two years of work to get to that point.
That said, I have to warn about JomSocial - I've done a LOT of work with Azrul, including helping them identify and fix bugs. The package is buggy to the extreme, breaks, has huge security holes, and is generally not a good idea. If you look at Model Insider, you might notice that it uses JomSocial. But it's three versions back, forked, and completely rewritten in many major areas. I no longer even offer my help to them because of their lack of professionalism and steadfast denial of their issues.
Kunena is good, but is also somewhat thin in terms of features. Also free is PHPBB3, and there are many free bridges that allow for a much more robust forum.