HOW TO START AND MAKE YOUR OWN SOCIAL NETWORK
By dexixy
There has been an explosion of social networking activities online and this has been the most important trend online in the past few years.
This is visible with the success of such social networks like facebook, myspace, twitter, linkedin etc. Facebook alone which launched in 2006 commands over 500 million registered users globally as of 2010 statistics.
This explosion has prompted various well-wishers and companies to create open social networking scripts at a free cost. Now you just have to download, install, configure and preach the gospel about your new Social network.
Some of such open social networking scripts include:
-Buddypress
This is a wordpress sister project. It comes as a wordpress plugin. Some of its outstanding features include: User profiles, private messaging, friends/buddylist, groups, activity streams, a wall/stream like section named "the wire" for status updates and tweet like on site micro blogging.
-Elgg
Elgg is a fabulous platform written in PHP which you can use to create a myspace or facebook like site. In 2008 it won the category for best social networking platform, also it has a viable and active community which makes it eligible for a try. Some notable sites using elgg include-->.BuddyGo ,Rucku ,Snippr
Some of its features include: Blog, chat, file sharing features, customizable user profiles, youtube video embedding.
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-Xoops with yogurt extension
Xoops is an extensible CMS which you can use to start a site based on your needs. However with xoops alone you cannot create a social network. You need to install a particular module called "yogurt". With this yogurt extension prepare to get a fully packed social networking with features like: Photo albums, youtube video embed, mp3 files, Friends list, a public wall named "scraps", create tribes and many more.
-Pligg
Pligg is a CMS system you can use to start a site like Digg, Mixx. Some of its features include: user profiles, voting on things that are good, private messaging, members have full control over their content, each user gets own profile.
Follow this Tutorial on how to Install Pligg
-Drigg
Drigg is another script you can use to start a digg like site. It is a drupal module. Some of its powerful features include: flexible voting, automatic voting, and automatic role assignment.
-Status.net
With this open source script you can start your own micro-blogging website like twitter. Some of its features include: Status/notices, messaging, user profiles etc.
-Yonkly
Yonkly is a asp.net based script you can use to start your own micro-blogging platform. Some of its features include: Support for Groups and timeline, Message search.
-Mahara
Mahara is an e-portfolio platform and you can use it to setup an online learner community.
Some of its outstanding features include: Blog, Résumé builder, a file manager, institutions detail and the social networking aspect of adding and maintaining your friends.
-Lovd by Less
Another great script and the first of its kind on Ruby on rails platform. Some of its outstanding features include: Blogs, photo gallery with captions, search friends, activity update and user messaging system.
Visit lovd by less main website
-Jcow
Jcow is another great php script you can use to start your own facebook like site. It has both a free and premium version .Some features of its free version include: User proofiles, status updates, blogs, forums e.t.c
Oxwall
Oxwall is unbelievably flexible and easy to use PHP/MySQL community software platform.
Features include: Video upload, photo albums, Groups, forum, link, chat and many more
Laconica
Laconica is another great script to start your own micro-blogging website like twitter. Oone great feature of Laconica is the Support for open I.D.
This site Identi.ca uses laconica as its platform
Comments
Thanks for reading and commenting, i'm glad you've found this information helpful and wishing you all luck. i appreciate your compliment.
This was lots of useful information! Thanks!
Great you found this useful, thanks for the comment
This is so great, something I needed to know. Thanks for sharing. A.B.
we all do social networking so much and every social network today on the internet has something good and different of its own...thanks for sharing this little info
I had been thinking about whether or not to start a social network. Your info was greatly appreciated.
Fantastic Article...There is also another membership type plug in for WP called mingle. Easy to set up but limited. I will call it a step above Vbulletin.
I love that you put social networks here as well. Ning is a good choice as well but again sort of limited with some functions.
I have not yet looked at ELGG I will head over there to give it a whirl.
I am testing out amember right now for a membership site. Looked at Whishlist but it seems to have too many snags...
Keep up the excellent work my friend.
Thanks for the info. Found a lot of interesting alternatives to elgg.
What a very informative hub! It is so true that networking has been a trend for social and work related connections. I know for a fact that I would've not been able to reconnect with many of my loved ones and friends, if not because of MySpace and now Facebook! Thank you for sharing the sites! I might try and take a look at some of these things, myself. Take care. Keep at it. God bless!
fantastic . loved it.
I never knew any of this. I found it very interesting. Voted up.
fastfreta 16 months ago
What an interesting hub. I wish I was brave enough to try one of these. I'm going to bookmark it and sometimes down the road I might give it a try. You did an awesome job in giving us this information. Thanks.