Demand: What Japanese concrete5 market needs for 5.7
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I was asked by a add-on developer that what Japanese concrete5 market needs.
I thought I would share my thoughts in the forum not only as private message.
Each country and culture has its own web culture. So I'm just speaking based on Japan. But if you can make one of the following add-ons, I would help to promote in Japan.
concrete5.6 marketplace started to meet all the demands. So I would use those add-ons as examples.
I see that many add-on and theme developer complain about the decline of their sales.
I also think that add-on developers are not really thinking about the demand of the market much.
So I would throw this topic to encourage other developers to start creating the theme and add-ons for concrete5.
Themes
====================
We really need more theme options available.
Not only we need more theme, we would like to see the support of Japanese fonts.
The themes without many use of web fonts.
Japanese has more than thousands characters. So we don't have much free English web-fonts.
The themes without using too much web fonts but standard font-family and images, would be great.
FYI, this is the ideal font-family set for Japanese theme as in July 2015 in my opinion. (Of course it would change in the future)
If you want to make a theme for Japanese market, you should use the above font-family. And NO OTHER WEB FONTS.
Add-ons
====================
1) Form Package with Confirmation Screen
--------------------
In Japan, people wants to have confirmation screen before they send a web form email to double check if their web form entry is correct.
In concret5.6
- Tomoac Form
- Formidable
were perfect add-ons with ideal functionality.
2) Free Custom Block Creation Package and Repeated Item Custom Block Package
--------------------
Well, in concrete5, Designer Content and Designer Content Pro were perfect package.
I was able to present how easy to create a custom block with Designer Content. So that many people can try out concrete5 with risk-free.
Then I was able to recommend Designer Content Pro for repeated item to create custom slideshow, download link and manual navigation and etc.
Yes, there is Block Designer but it's not free add-ons.
I have, personally, bought Block Designer, and will continue to buy Block Designer since I know how important Designer Content was.
But in the future, there would be more people without knowing Designer Content. So it would be less people knowing how Custom Block package worth.
In my opinion, we should have Designer Content for 5.7
And then we would also like to see Designer Content Pro-like package for 5.7.
In concret5.6
- Designer Content
- Designer Content Pro
were perfect add-ons with ideal functionality.
3) Forum Add-ons
--------------------
concrete5 Japan, Inc. has been working with major Japanese corporations to build their intranet sites.
There are many community portal as well. So there will be huge demand in Japan.
Forum or Bulletin Board add-ons would be next add-ons that we would like to get.
In concrete5.6
- Discussion
- Basic Forum
would be the perfect add-ons
4) Newsletter Add-ons
--------------------
Newsletter add-ons would be great. Japanese people still use email as marketing tools for business a slot (not personally).
In concrete5.6
- Mailing List
was perfect Add-on
5) Various Image and Slideshow add-ons
--------------------
This is universal. It would be nice to have nice looking slideshow package with various options. But if Designer Content Pro-like package became available in concrete5.7. It would be much easier to create such an add-ons.
Thanks!
I thought I would share my thoughts in the forum not only as private message.
Each country and culture has its own web culture. So I'm just speaking based on Japan. But if you can make one of the following add-ons, I would help to promote in Japan.
concrete5.6 marketplace started to meet all the demands. So I would use those add-ons as examples.
I see that many add-on and theme developer complain about the decline of their sales.
I also think that add-on developers are not really thinking about the demand of the market much.
So I would throw this topic to encourage other developers to start creating the theme and add-ons for concrete5.
Themes
====================
We really need more theme options available.
Not only we need more theme, we would like to see the support of Japanese fonts.
The themes without many use of web fonts.
Japanese has more than thousands characters. So we don't have much free English web-fonts.
The themes without using too much web fonts but standard font-family and images, would be great.
FYI, this is the ideal font-family set for Japanese theme as in July 2015 in my opinion. (Of course it would change in the future)
font-family: Quicksand, 游ゴシック体, 'Yu Gothic', YuGothic, 'ヒラギノ角ゴシック Pro', 'Hiragino Kaku Gothic Pro', メイリオ, Meiryo, Osaka, 'ＭＳ Ｐゴシック', 'MS PGothic', sans-serif;
If you want to make a theme for Japanese market, you should use the above font-family. And NO OTHER WEB FONTS.
Add-ons
====================
1) Form Package with Confirmation Screen
--------------------
In Japan, people wants to have confirmation screen before they send a web form email to double check if their web form entry is correct.
In concret5.6
- Tomoac Form
- Formidable
were perfect add-ons with ideal functionality.
2) Free Custom Block Creation Package and Repeated Item Custom Block Package
--------------------
Well, in concrete5, Designer Content and Designer Content Pro were perfect package.
I was able to present how easy to create a custom block with Designer Content. So that many people can try out concrete5 with risk-free.
Then I was able to recommend Designer Content Pro for repeated item to create custom slideshow, download link and manual navigation and etc.
Yes, there is Block Designer but it's not free add-ons.
I have, personally, bought Block Designer, and will continue to buy Block Designer since I know how important Designer Content was.
But in the future, there would be more people without knowing Designer Content. So it would be less people knowing how Custom Block package worth.
In my opinion, we should have Designer Content for 5.7
And then we would also like to see Designer Content Pro-like package for 5.7.
In concret5.6
- Designer Content
- Designer Content Pro
were perfect add-ons with ideal functionality.
3) Forum Add-ons
--------------------
concrete5 Japan, Inc. has been working with major Japanese corporations to build their intranet sites.
There are many community portal as well. So there will be huge demand in Japan.
Forum or Bulletin Board add-ons would be next add-ons that we would like to get.
In concrete5.6
- Discussion
- Basic Forum
would be the perfect add-ons
4) Newsletter Add-ons
--------------------
Newsletter add-ons would be great. Japanese people still use email as marketing tools for business a slot (not personally).
In concrete5.6
- Mailing List
was perfect Add-on
5) Various Image and Slideshow add-ons
--------------------
This is universal. It would be nice to have nice looking slideshow package with various options. But if Designer Content Pro-like package became available in concrete5.7. It would be much easier to create such an add-ons.
Thanks!
I'm working on repeatable items for Block Designer (Pro), but it's not as easy as it seems. So that will take a bit more time than expected. It will come, I just don't know a date yet.
You say:
"Then I was able to recommend Designer Content Pro for repeated item to create custom slideshow, download link and manual navigation and etc. Yes, there is Block Designer but it's not free add-ons."
Designer Content Pro is also not free, so not sure what you want to say with your last sentence here? When Block Designer can make repeatable items, you are able to combine non-repeatable with repeatable. So it will be a bit more advanced over the designer content (pro) version. Also, if I'm not mistaken, Designer Content + the Pro version, only got about 10 fields. So there's an advantage and disadvantage for both Designer Content (Pro) and Block Designer. Free is always best, I know. But a couple of bucks can save you a lot of time, which means money. It's just what one can spare for a product.
You say:
"Then I was able to recommend Designer Content Pro for repeated item to create custom slideshow, download link and manual navigation and etc. Yes, there is Block Designer but it's not free add-ons."
Designer Content Pro is also not free, so not sure what you want to say with your last sentence here? When Block Designer can make repeatable items, you are able to combine non-repeatable with repeatable. So it will be a bit more advanced over the designer content (pro) version. Also, if I'm not mistaken, Designer Content + the Pro version, only got about 10 fields. So there's an advantage and disadvantage for both Designer Content (Pro) and Block Designer. Free is always best, I know. But a couple of bucks can save you a lot of time, which means money. It's just what one can spare for a product.
@MrKDilkington
Thanks.
Yeah, I'm aware that some web fonts are available for free. But they are large (a couple megabytes). So it would take time for the users to download.
There are a few technology available to avoid the heavy download though. But it's not time yet.
@Ramon
Thanks! Nice to hear that you're developing Block Designer Pro.
Yes, I know that Designer Content Pro is paid add-on.
I meant that in 5.6 Japanese concrete5 users was able to buy Designer Content Pro comfortably after they used and mastered Designer Content for free.
If you could be in the game. I would like to suggest that you would make Block Designer Lite which are limited to very basic options for field for free.
Thanks.
Yeah, I'm aware that some web fonts are available for free. But they are large (a couple megabytes). So it would take time for the users to download.
There are a few technology available to avoid the heavy download though. But it's not time yet.
@Ramon
Thanks! Nice to hear that you're developing Block Designer Pro.
Yes, I know that Designer Content Pro is paid add-on.
I meant that in 5.6 Japanese concrete5 users was able to buy Designer Content Pro comfortably after they used and mastered Designer Content for free.
If you could be in the game. I would like to suggest that you would make Block Designer Lite which are limited to very basic options for field for free.
It is interesting to hear how web design and development differs in other areas of the world.
Last night I was listening to a podcast about web fonts. One of the topics was Typekit supporting East Asian web fonts and a special feature called "dynamic subsetting".
"Well, here’s what we have done: when you add an East Asian font family to your kit, it will automatically become what we call a dynamic kit. In a dynamic kit, you’ll have a new Character Set option in the kit editor called Dynamic Subsetting. When your dynamic kit JavaScript loads in the browser, it will detect your page’s character usage and request a dynamic subset for the glyphs needed for each member of the family. This makes for very small fonts, with incredibly fast load times."
http://blog.typekit.com/2015/06/15/announcing-east-asian-web-font-s...
Have you had a chance to try this yet? If so, how does it perform?