Successful Company

Hello Everyone! This week let’s talk about how a company can succeed using blogging and wiki! Today's guest of honour is CyanogenMod!

http://goo.gl/snztlj

CyanogenMod  is an open source operating system for smartphones and tablet computers, based on the Android mobile platform. It is developed as free and open source software based on the official releases of Android by Google, with added original and third-party code.

When the HTC Dream mobile phone was released in 2008, a method discovered called “root” allowed the general public to change the Android System, modifying its firmware and re-installing on the phone. In the following year, many android enthusiasts made their own android versions, and one became well popular among the owners of the HTC Dream, was a version made by a developer called JesusFreke and improved by Steve Kondik, today known as Cyanogen.

Since that, the version called CyanogenMod became extremely popular, and a small community of developers was formed to maintain the project. Today that group of developers grew a lot and became a successful company supporting more than 220 devices. The company is present in many social medias, like Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus.

http://goo.gl/bAqU8c

The foundation of CyanogenMod was already based on being social, due the fact that it was born in collaborative forums about Android. It is improved every day by a huge team of developers, with the help of the community. The forum is one of the best ways the company interacts with the public, through this channel the company gather information needed to continue to please the custumers/community and also answer questions and feedbacks. Each device supported by CyanogenMod has a unique thread and discussion, focusing its own development problems and solutions.

http://goo.gl/bAqU8c

The wiki is extremely complete and intuitive; through there you can see all information about the company, the list of supported devices, support of each device, community, news and learning center. The wiki and forum allows everyone to search and post about an issue, bug, news, new ideas and concerns about CyanogenMod or the Android community, without it the company probably wouldn't exist in the first place. All the work done in the firmware devices is usually updated daily, called Nightly releases, with provide new software update and bug fixes for every device. The most interesting thing is that anyone can create a discussion and suggest new improvements/bug fixes and actually be heard by the company and all community, and this is how a company should interact with its own public.

The CyanogendMod became famous due the fact that the others companies did not care about the community around a new device, also didn’t care about the high modified software full of bugs and way more slow and ugly than the official stock android (I am speaking of you, Samsung and old-Motorola!).

Today after these years, we can see changes in the smartphone market caused by CyanogenMod and other custom-roms. A good example is Motorola after being bought by Google in January 2014. The company stopped investing only in high-end specifications and focused on customer satisfaction and software performance. The Motorola Moto G was released by Motorola and costs ¼ of a Galaxy S5 and it is faster in many daily situations.

All of this, is free. The company doesn’t charge for anything said here! From being just a customized rom made by android fans, the CyanogenMod turn out to be a successful company, launching a highly critically acclaimed phone with a company called OnePlus, the OnePlus One.  I am a very happy owner of a OnePlus One and I am thankful for all CyanogenMod support for all these years.

Who else is a happy user of CyanogenMod? Leave a comment down below! Thanks!

Interesting Links:

Supported Devices:

http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Devices

About CyanogenMod:

http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/About

Forum:

http://forum.cyanogenmod.org/