The power of Joomla! does not end there. Through the massive support of third party extensions, Joomla! can easily be adapted to suit whatever you needs want in seconds. I take me under sixty seconds to add a functioning forum to my Joomla! homepage. Here are a few of the different things you can easily do with third party extensions:

Display a gallery of photos, in any Content Item on the site by typing {gallery}FolderName{/gallery}.
Embed a youtube video in your content, by typing {youtube}WeirdID#{/youtube}.
Install a complete, secure, open source shopping cart on your homepage and customize it completely, with pictures and many different modules and payment methods in under an hour!
There are over a thousand third parties Joomla! Extensions and most of them are free or have free and paid versions.

The second reason I chose Joomla! is flexibility. Joomla! has a hierarchal structure which relies on Sections, Categories and Content. This can easily be visualized as a bowl, within a package filled with water. The bowl is the categories, the package is the sections and the water is the content (because it's everywhere). The essence of Joomla! is your site is dynamic, easy to update, change and interact with. The interaction comes from components and modu8les that are installed but the dynamic nature of Joomla! comes from it's unique structural design. Categories and Sections can easily be placed on any menu of the site, allowing for quick and easy interaction from the user. One of the greatest things about Joomla! is the complete separation of navigation and content (which is at the heart of W3C standards).

Joomla! is flexible in many other ways. It is great for giving the users of your site exactly the abilities they need to function in the manner you want them to. There are many different types of user levels on both the front end and the admin back end allowing you to pick exactly which level of access and ability you want to grant to individual users. On the front end, individuals can be Registered, Authors, Editors or Publishers. On the back end, they can be Managers, Admins and Super Admins. This is certainly a lot of options. What does it all mean and what level of access should you give to any particular user? What rank to give him depends primarily on what you need them to do and how well you know them. I'd advise against giving Super Admin status to just anyone!

On the front end, the higher a user is on the scale, the more ability he will have to affect news and content of the site. An Author can post content that an Editor or Publisher can then approve, or alternatively the Publisher can write and publish news on his own. On the back end, the Managers are essentially Publishers with back end access. Administrators can do pretty much anything and Super Administrators can do anything except delete another Super Administrator. The flexibility extends into all areas of the program and is indeed one of its greatest features.

The final reason I choose Joomla! was because of it's commitment to open source software. When you see the incredible work done by open source teams like the Joomla! one you understand there is no need for a commercial CMS whilst Joomla! is still on the market. Fundamentally, there is absolutely no reason that open source software cannot provide for all the software needs of the computing community. When you remove the licensing restrictions and replace them with the GNU public license it means a lot more people can start using the software, which opens up productivity world wide. Further more, open source software is inherently more secure and better documented, because you have thousands of people working on it, instead a team of twenty. The law of large numbers says if you throw enough stones you'll eventually hit every bull’s eye possible. The 'brute force' coding approach of a massive effort like the Joomla! community can provide an extremely stable, secure and powerful enviroment.

It is important to note that not everything related to Joomla! is free. iJoomla! is just one of many examples of components, modules and mambots that were designed for Joomla yet charge a subscription fee for it's use. Fundamentally, these components are a positive thing, because they provide necessary functionality to those willing to pay for it, without denying the core functionality of the engine. Further, I think the open source community feels extremely competitive about keeping up with commercial alternatives in their own back yard and these developments spur on free Component development.

Joomla is powerful, flexible and free (like free beer) and these are the reasons I call it my CMS.