15 Aug 2008 06:28 PM EDT

Welcome to my blog!  

I've been at Citrix for about 6 months now and my team and I have been hard at work to bring you the revamped Citrix Community  site.   I'm calling this version of the site "Citrix Community 2.0" to emphasize the fact that it's a new version of the site and that the site incorporates many of the Web 2.0/Enterprise 2.0 technologies that you see written  or filmed about so often in the media.  I tend to think that a lot of Web 2.0 is overhyped (are there really this many Web 2.0 companies??), but I found this definition that I really like "Web 2.0 is linking people...people sharing, trading, and collaborating" If you have 4 minutes, I really suggest checking out the video - plus it's got a great soundtrack. 

The whole purpose of updating our site is to really allow people with an interest in virtualization and application delivery to share and learn ideas.  In fact, you'll see our tagline is "Discover, Connect, Participate".  The new site allows you to all of that and more! 

So, let's get down to the details.  What is new about the site? 

The Citrix Community site is a new multi-media, launching pad to reach your favorite Citrix communities.  It is the location to discover what is hot around application delivery and virtualization; connect with Citrix product teams, customers and industry pundits; and participate through sharing of opinions, thoughts and knowledge in blogs, forums and code sharing.   

New capabilities include better description and easier navigation to Citrix communities, ties to our extended communities in the industry (Hello Citrix CTPs!), enhanced multi-media/video support and real time blog feeds from across the blogosphere, all on a completely redesigned look and feel. In addition, we have made it easier for Citrites (that's what we call ourselves) and non-Citrites (that would be you!) to participate and create content.  Check out our Video Tip Factory if you don't believe me. 

Of course, one of the key communities is the Citrix Developer Network, which has undergone quite a dramatic change itself... 

The Citrix Developer Network is the place for open, unfiltered, straight talk on Citrix products.  The goal of the Citrix Developer Network is to provide access to technical information for all aspects of our community, from Network Architects to IT Professionals, to Data Center Architects to Developers.   

Based on your requests, forum posts and support calls, we have expanded the products covered, while simplifying access to the information.  We now have specific Developer Networks for XenApp, XenDesktop, NetScaler,  XenServer and one of our newest (and coolest) products, Workflow Studio.  Interested in multiple products?  Never fear, due to tagging technology, blogs, discussion and content relevant to multiple products will be available wherever relevant (example, server virtualization is key to both XenServer and XenDesktop). 

New capabilities available in per-product flavors include RSS feeds for our forums (I know, duh - this should have been there long ago), best practices pages, multi-media centers, wiki articles, code snippets and SDK examples. 

Last but not least, the Citrix Blogs platform has some simple to use, yet powerful enhancements, including "window shade" views of blogs to allow you to see more content in less real estate and the simplification of our group blogs to ensure you can find the content you are looking for. 

Today's launch of the revamped Citrix Community site is the first phase of multiple updates occurring in the next few months.  It is the result of a lot of hard work from the team, but also from the community.  Many of the changes and planned changes come directly from you, our community.  We are not done yet and I hope you aren't either. 

Please provide us feedback in the forms of responses to this blog, emails, or better yet post a video. 

Thanks for taking the time to check out the new Citrix Community site... and I have one last request... 

Discover, Connect, Participate

John

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Love the new look. I also like the new CDN Site. Keep up the good work

Posted by Anonymous at Aug 15, 2008 20:40 | Reply To This

The new CDN site rocks!!!. I like the mash up on the multimedia page pulling videos from different video sites. Citrix Video tip site came as a complete surprise for me. I did know that even existed. Good job overall. Travis K

Posted by Anonymous at Aug 16, 2008 00:26 | Reply To This

I have been a Citrix administrator from last 8 years now. Citrix has come a long way from being super secretive to being "OPEN". Something has definitely changed may be the leadership or the overall attitude. I remember how hard it used to get any feedback from Citrix architects and engineers. The only source of no nonsense straight talk use to be external blogs like brian madden or doug brown. John you and your team has done an excellent job with this new look. Couple of suggestions to grow the communities 1 Build a reward system for points similar to forums to encourage users to get recognized as top users. 2 More Citrix executives like you need to blog and gather feedback on company's direction Brian T

Posted by Anonymous at Aug 16, 2008 17:03 | Reply To This

Changes look pretty good, you guys have given me a reason to actually visit the home of communities other than just the blogs site. Video tips site comes very handy as well.

It's good to see that Citrix is investing less on pointless marketing material and more on technical content, highly educational and easy to find.

congratulations.

Posted by Anonymous at Aug 17, 2008 08:34 | Reply To This

The Tip site is great , please put more screencasts in there. I would rather follow a screencast for a specific task than pour through a manual.

Posted by Anonymous at Aug 17, 2008 15:24 | Reply To This