OpenX Blog
Changes to OpenX site and brand - quick guide
Tags: There are lots of questions about the OpenX site and brand. Here is a consolidated FAQ about the changes:
Why did you change the name? I like Openads!
When a software project is a grass roots effort (rather than a company), the only consideration that is made regarding the name is whether it is available in Sourceforge. There are no other considerations taken into account. We needed to create a name for our company that has not just one dimension (it is an appropriate name for an open source ad server), but many dimensions (e.g. will extend to other products as well). Changing a name is a very difficult decision, and we did not take this task lightly. We spent months choosing a name. Mel and I finally came to a decision with OpenX, and we stand behind it. I can promise you that this is the last time.
What’s with the new site design?
The goal is to make the site as simple as possible to a vast number of users - from developers with tons of technical expertise, to bloggers who will find it challenging with the most simple of technical tasks. Over the past year, we have changed the site a number of times in response to community feedback. We will continue to evolve the site based on your feedback, so please let us know how we can improve the site, so that it is pleasing and easy to use.
How will the product change?
There will be no change in the way the ad server gets installed or upgraded. The brand name of the product will now become OpenX. If you do not customise the ad server, the new logo will appear in the upper left corner of the product. We are evolving the look and feel of the ad server to be much cleaner than before (Niels did a great job with the UI, but it is showing its age after four years!). Here is a screenshot of the new product:
OpenX Ad Server is an application like an online bank account - publishers use it for arguably the most important part of their job - making revenue. All changes to the product are there to add efficiency to the workflow. Every element that is changed or added to the site is analysed with this in mind.
Does my feedback matter?
Absolutely. We are building OpenX - the site and the product - for the community. We are very dependent on feedback, both good and bad, from the community. Developing in a vacuum will result in a product that nobody wants. Please keep your feedback coming. Tell us how we can improve our site or product so that it works better for you. Please be as constructive as possible, so that we can take action on your feedback.
I’ve had OpenAds installed for only one week and still becoming familiar with it, but can see the versatility and scalability. The installation went smoothly but I must say the admin interface left me hunting and pecking back and forward trying to find the screen I needed. Now I have some set patterns to find things but would like to see more menu choices, for example on the sidebar, or active links in the breadcrumbs at the top.
One stumbling block that took me ages to figure was that the ad size must be exact or the ad would not link to the zone. Also ‘Description’ in the banner properties is ‘Title’ in other places - a little confusing.
The Help is a bit terse, and some text field defaults misleading. Some examples would be useful.
Great software and look forward to using it more. Love the reports.
Thanks.
Mike -
We are looking for ways to improve workflow in the product. Your suggestions are great. I will forward them to our UI guys. There are a number of places where the naming is inconsistent. Even more reports are coming!
Scott
I have been using openads for a number of years now and think that is a great program. With the new name change must of the links on my current installation to the documentation – for instance: how to configure scheduled maintenance – no longer work. It took me a while to find the information regarding this in the new site: there is no search interface!
Please make an effort to set redirects for all the links in openads 2.4 installation to the new server, otherwise the redesign effort you made will not be appreciated at all.
It is also very confusing to go from the old openad to the new site: it looks like someone hijacked the openads page: very disturbing. A landing page with a short explanation would be great. This page also can hold all of the links to the documentation from the old installation.
Ganar,
Thanks for the feedback. We put a news article on the home page that describes the name change, but I guess this is not enough. I will make sure redirects work correctly.
Scott
I have to agree Ganar… I was extremely confused getting to your newly named and redesigned site. The next issue was trying to find the 2.4.3 version for download. I ended up having to Google for the filename.
First off, thank you for this great software. Although I too think OpenX is and the new theme are off-contextual, you should bear in mind that people are affected by flock mentality. It means it only takes a few bad comments to spawn the whole long thread of bad comments. Had the very first people posted good comments, there would be a long string of positive comments. Reference: http://www.zmescience.com/scientists-point-out-our-flock-mentality
Frankly, these changes will not matter at all in the near future. I will have to make myself familiar with it. However I do hope everything is going upward with lots of improvements and bug fixes.
To all people who posted harsh comments, OpenX is free open source project. Most of you are generating profits because of who? The OpenX team. Without them, you would have used some crappy software that might takes away 30% of your revenue through sharing scheme, or you would have stuck with one specific network ads. You owe your apologies to OpenX team!
Thanks all for the efforts so far in building OpenX into what it is today.
Two suggestions for your consideration.
1. Navigation shortcuts would be a welcome addition - it takes quite a few click to get around from one area to another at times. My suggestion would be a dynamic zoom bubble flowchart ( DB query fed flash, dynamically built content ) which in it self would be an innovation and of course may or may not be feasible.
2. Greater report detail. I’m off in a moment to upgrade my OpenAds install to OpenX so I realise this may already have been done but I really miss getting country and most recent visitor stats directly without having to use other programs for this basic stuff.
Tanks again for a wonderfully useful application - keep up the great work ::thumb::
Cheers
Thanks. We have been playing around with different interfaces, and this is a priority after we move to a template based system. The legacy phpAdsNew application had DB queries alongside HTML. It is a big effort to clean up.
Reports are built to be plugins, so that anyone can add a new report. We will build additional reports, and will also incorporate reports donated by the community (hint, hint)!
Cheers,
Scott
Sounds like a plan.
Another additional feature that I would like to see is the ability to set the REL of the generated links - if nowhere else then alonglsite target on the invocation page but probably on the banner properties page also.
Cheers
[…] OpenX responds to questions here and here. OpenX, TCUK digg_url = […]
Yesterday I installed Version 2.4 but my tabs look different compared to the screenshot in this post. They look more like the previous version. Is this an update problem?
Marcus,
The version that I described above is what is in v2.5. It has not been released yet - only in SVN and our private beta hosted version at the moment.
Scott
This is very nice, good work guys and so on… But where can I find fool list of changes?
Changes from what?
We have a list of product features here:
http://www.openx.org/products/specs
Is this what you need?
Scott
>Changes from what?
I mean new features and bugfixes since 2.4.3. Changelog or something…
Hi KVentz
We’re fixing a bug on our website, the release notes will be published as usual once it’s resolved.
In the mean time, you can see the latest change log here:
https://developer.openx.org/jira/browse/OX/fixforversion/10087
cheers, Oliver
Hi scott/Oliver.
Thanks for the wonderful product. we have been using it for long time. and its a wonderful experience.
Product specifications talk bout features like:
- Behaviour Targeting
- Contextual Targeting
- eCPM reports
However in default installation, I could not find the documents/help/information about checking these features.
Is there any repository where i can find these docs ?
Any relation to http://www.openx.ca, by any chance?
No, openx.ca aka OpenX Technologies was an healthcare software company that was purchased in 2004 by a larger healthcare group. After 2004 they ceased to operate and trade under the name openx tech, they actually don’t exist anymore.
[…] quick note from Scott Switzer gives us some insight to why the company has re-branded themselves to OpenX. Personally, I’m […]
When is v.2.5 coming out for all to use? I would like to implement it on a new site of mine.
I would estimate a month or so away, but nothing definite yet — as far as I know.
Links to the Openads developer wiki are now broken.
I think that changing the organisational and brand name to something as generic as OpenX might not prove to be a wise desicion in the long run….
Whereas it previously had a name that could be marketed easily it now has become that will create more confusion than clarity. It is like BMW rebranding to opencar.
What is OpenX? Ok, it implies open source. But it also implies the X engine used in Linux. Don’t get me wrong: I like the product.But, because of the versatility and the feature request transforming it (and the organisation) into someting similar as computational device (in stead of keeping the brand Apple) is not the right choice.
Better would it have been to keep OpenAds (the name customers/users know) and create an umbrella to hang the various products underneath.
Regards,
Pierre Smits
Change the company name, fine. But why change the name of the ad software? Now instead of an intuitive product name, it’s a vague generic name. Big step back in branding. Even if you want a new company name and want to get into different products, there’s no reason to eliminate OpenAds as a product name.
OpenAds was clear for Ad-Server
OpenX is it an office application, maybe Excel, now?
OkayX we use your software for free but we also it because we like the spirit of the name:
OpenAds - A professional system for advertising for small sites which start to make some money.
(Interesting is the German social network OpenBC rebranded to Xing)
At the end of the day what matters is you products which simply does the job for free.
So just keep up the good work and in a few months all this will be forgotten …
You guys have a fantastic product. I worked for DoubleClick back in the day and I think your Adserver is on par with DART. I’m looking forward to working with the hosted version and the future of the brand.
The software with every update seems to throw tons of problems at the server admin. No upgrade seems to go smoothly, and I wish there was more focus on the bugs.
I know it’s free, so I can’t complain, but it’s still frustrating. Yet more time is being wasted on rebrands, another rename etc.
And OpenX? If I see one more product name with X in it I think I may scream, it’s so 20th century.
Tony,
Please do send through any problems that you have with the upgrade. OpenX is free, yes, but still should have zero bugs.
I have been living with OpenX for a while now - it grows on you (in a good way
). Give it some time…
Scott
If the site already have version 2.4 will installing version 2.5 on the site effect the coding or its only more features
also would it effect the plug ins that the publisher already have on his interface??
New versions of OpenX will affect any custom code that you have done (if changes were made outside our rather limited plugin interface). We are building a more robust plugin interface that will allow for customisation in a standard way, so that upgrades will not affect changes that use the plugin interface properly.
Scott
[…] (formerly known as PHPAdsNew) is now rebranded as OpenX. This project started a few years back to provide an open source Advertisement Management system. […]
I don’t understand the reason behind the new name, but anyway you made a decision already. The new design though is nice. You can also aggregate CSS and JS for faster loading.
Additionaly, what would help is a clear statement on how you’ll make money. Some customers when they hear about the free nature of OpenAds think that free is not good or there is a catch. So clarifying this would help.
We’ve been using PHadsnew for a couple of years and suits our purpose very well. Last november I tried upgrading to Openads and it didn’t go well - at the time it look like it took all our sites down - but then we thought it was a hack attempt.
I tried again in the latest release and all seemed to go well with the upgrade but something VERY strange happened that made me decide not to use it. The so called hack attempt (which was php shutting down to protect itself) was actually Openads time zone setting - If I choose the time zone from the drop down menu it triggered something that brought PHP down on our server (and a tone of emailed attach reports form our security script we set up to notify us) - there were other issues with stats not showing etc.
As much as I like and admire the project, in the end the project seems to be getting too complicated for our needs so were sticking with PHPadsnew and will customize what we need (like inactive ad clean up script and monthly emailed reports).
I will of course look at anything produced here for possible future use as it’s always interesting to see where things are going.
[…] the same time, OpenAds ad serving open source software company, re-branded itself to OpenX. One of the main reasons they mentioned for this move, is to create the environment to […]
And why the change? you can be OpenX company that owns OpenAds product… as simple as that :s
[…] FAQ on OpenX’s […]
[…] OpenAds changes to OpenX […]
Hello!
Using phpadsnew few years now. Great software. Installed now openx and a lot of problems noticed. First of all statistics page is not showing. Just empty page with top menu. Was using external banners with iframe display. Putted some banner. Then changed it to another. Was showing correctly in the admin, but in the page there was still old one. After ~ 10 minutes it changed. Never seen such problems on openads. Will try to reinstal openx and see what happens.
Nevertheless great job done!
Please keep the OpenAds product name. Go ahead and rename the parent company OpenX.
Really love it. Keep on with it.
Aren’t you worried about being confused with that device that opens the plastic bubble packaging?
http://www.myopenx.com/home.htm
I don’t like the new name sorry.
I agree with changing the company name to X but the application no.
I like the new site design and the name name. Nice job.
Hello,
How can I access the old website version?
I wasted 20 minutes searching the internet for the old site. I entered this website several times and always left thinking this is a kids party something website,
Sorry guys, but this looks terribly unprofessional. A tool for advertising that doesn’t know to advertise itself…
And yes, the new name sounds like a porn thingy…
A couple things:
We have been using this program for a long, long time. It’s a great product, and provides a heck of a lot of functionality. Many of the functions are usable as well and the statistics and reports are a critical aspect of our ability to get revenue. Fantastic stuff!
Its the location of the functions that could stand some improvement :/ Others have mentioned it, but I wanted to clarify it bit:
Some pages are located in a linear path (above or below a page) and at different times, they are located in a lateral path (equal to a page). This changes depending on your relative position, which can be confusing. As a result, placing a page or function “absolutely” in my mind was initially pretty difficult. I couldn’t internalize how to reach a page, because it was different depending on my click path, which at first, is open-ended. So the learning curve is a bit long. Making more precise, absolute paths for different functions would be my only suggestion.
And I love the name and the site - familiarity matters to those who used to have it, but OpenX is GREAT for introducing the product to new customers (your goal!). OpenAds is more generic than OpenX and in the long term, its better to foster a new semantic association than force one with words that carry more “baggage” so to speak. OpenX is more unique, and relevant/generic brand names only work when you are alone in a market. Since thats not the case, OpenX helps to differentiate, so I think its a great change.
Again: thanks for making such a great open source product!
Ryan,
Thanks for the very helpful comments. Over time, OpenX has become a bit complicated, and there is currently a real effort to simplify our product starting with v2.5 (currently in beta). I will forward these on to the product team.
Again, thanks!
Scott
Biggest thing you can do to change UI is separate the inventory tab out. Why are campaigns, zone etx in inventory? They are not actual assets.
Also, talking about UI, well, more style, I am glad you took my tip and change the yellow text in the yellow balloon in the top menu. Now perhaps you can get someone to make this text darker so we can read what we are typing when sitting here at 8am on our macbooks with the screen at the wrong angle
[…] nel sito OpenAds. Peraltro, recentemente, il sito è stato ribattezzato OpenX, come spiegato in questo post (in […]