In case any of you have been on an extended island vacation over the last month or two, you may not know that the topic everyone is focusing on is SEO and analytics. SEO and analytics was a major focus of the CMS EXPO in Denver.

(Just out of curiosity: how many of you have made a renewed effort to improve your SEO and/or analytics over the past 30-60 days? If you have, please add a note below

We had a great December meeting of the Joomla Chicago group. The focus was intellectual property issues, especially how the GPL and Joomla extensions relate to each other.

IP Attorney Bob Brill outlined key concepts. Read about "Intellectual Property of Open Source Software Extensions" on his blog.

Extension developer Mike Carson, of Integrated Technology and Design, related the concepts to

Coming back from the CMS Expo in Denver, one very clear message is that there's an enormous opportunity for communities and neighborhoods and municipalities to use Joomla to communicate their content on the web.

I think this is an especially interesting proposition for the Chicago community -- after all, we are the "City of Neighborhoods."

BTW - Click here for a very cool poster of Chicago

Andy Angelos gave an eye-opening talk about Web 2.0 and Social Networking to about 50 members of Joomla Chicago yesterday. The word of the day was "conversation" -- as in, "your website and other web communications should be directed at generating conversation with people -- not just talking at them!"

Instead of doing what I usually do -- writing an exhaustive blog post that tries to cover ever

I'm currently in the process of evaluating Azrul's JomSocial extension. Detailed observations are available on my blog on the Arc Technology Group site.

My question for the Joomla Chicago community: what requirements do we envision for a Joomla Chicago social networking functionality, over, say, the next year?

Please leave your comments about Joomla Chicago's social networking needs, or about

In recognition of the first full year of existence of Joomla Chicago, and in tribute to our fearless leader, John Coonen, I herewith reproduce a recently discovered account of the beginnings of the group.

Friday night had come, and the fall air was clear and crisp, and brimming with life. Anybody with an ounce of sense was down on Rush Street getting the weekend off to a rousing start.

John

I wrote a post yesterday about all the Joomla groups in big brainy cities. Several people pointed out that small brainy cities have Joomla groups, too! Hear, hear!

On that note, the possibility of a Joomla group for suburban Chicago was broached. I want to add two observations to that.

First, we would be delighted to assist in helping to branch towards the northern suburbs. We have a

Joomla Chicago members are in for a treat on Wednesday, November 12, when Andy Angelos addresses the group on the subject of Web 2.0 and Social Networking. Andy gave me a preview of his talk in the email interview reproduced below.

JS: Why should people who care about Joomla also care about Web 2.0 and social networking?

AA: Joomla Chicago members have all decided to participate in Web 2.0

The web is all about interaction, and the next monthly meeting of Joomla Chicago is all about how to put social networking and Web 2.0 together with Joomla.

Will you do something to help make that discussion as valuable as possible? Please respond to this blog post with comments about what works best for you. What types of social networking do you engage in? And also -- and this is the hard part

Attendees at the monthly Joomla Chicago meeting got a treat on Wednesday when Chicago member Kendall Cabe presented "Beginning Joomla" at 11:00 a.m., prior to the main presentation on security by Phil DeKoker.

Kendall covered basic installation in this session. In the next several months, he will teach a session on navigation and one on content -- to round out his presentation of everything you