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I'm looking to base my next community launch on a social networking script. I've just started looking into this, so I'm kind of new.
Are there any great ones that I should know of, and some I should stay away from?
I'm willing to pay 'decent' money for a good script.
Or...should I have one coded from the ground up?
I've been looking for a couple of days. There is Community Builder for Joomla at joomlapolis.com. There is another version for Mambo (Joomla and Mambo being closely related). There is a social networking module for Drupal at drupalution.com. Finally, there is osDate, a bit less than a social networking site, but an honorable mention. What I have yet to find is MySpace-like profiles that allow user's to insert HTML code and modify CSS tags.
you guys maybe read the newsweek article ? :P
Nope, but heading to check it out... (did you mean the one about kids and predators?)Originally Posted by lajkonik86
I think that I have discovered that the best solution is a combination of CiviCRM (a flavor of Drupal) and the MySpace module at www.drupalution.com. However, the Drupalution site seems to be adrift, there is no forum activity and you can't register as a user. More than half the modules that the site promotes are still in design, so the site is very new. Hopefully it will warm up. Interest in Drupal.org is starting to gather.
Here's something that's open source:
http://www.phpizabi.net/?L=cms.infos.about
(and still in beta, but it looks interesting..)
Well, it isn't *quite* open source, although they say it will be soon. At present they are still using Ioncube to encrypt portions of the code. I couldn't get Ioncube working to test their code.
What do you think of this application?
http://www.alstrasoft.com/efriends.htm
It's not open source, but I'd still like to hear your opinion on it...
Has anyone had a chance to look over this option: http://www.vastal.com/full_desc.php?soft_id=39
I talked to someone from there about a month back and was told that it's not encoded. A bit expensive, but it's the only script I found that works like myspace
Well, neither is open source. I can't say much without running the code, but I doubt that either allows users to put HTML code in their profile. That is what has made MySpace so wildly popular.
I am finding a drawback in Drupal, their forum is a disappointment and they don't support integration with any other open source forum like SMF or phpBB. However, it is certain that I could make profile pages that allow people to use HTML, even PHP if I were so foolish.
I'm pretty sure the script from vastal allows users to to put html code in their profiles. Where did you see that it was encoded?
I won't purchase another encoded script again
STAY WAY FROM ALSTRASOFT!What do you think of this application?
http://www.alstrasoft.com/efriends.htm
It's not open source, but I'd still like to hear your opinion on it...
They make absolutley atrocious software, and you'd be extremley lucky if the software even partially worked.
Ad spots available on 750k/m site. PM for info.
Wow, you're the second person today to tell me that their products were problematic. Thanks for the warning!
I'm taking a closer look at vastal's scripts now. I also like the Vastal's shaadi script. I think one could do some interesting things with it.
Here's something that claims to be an open soure myspace clone:
http://www.popscript.com/view_item.p...bcategoryID=58
Your thoughts?
ETA:
I don't think I like it...
Last edited by Kat; Mar 19, 2006 at 11:48.
Does anyone know what's being used to power: http://www.christianster.com ?
Regarding phpIzabi, they're about to release 'Alicia' which is supposed to be 'worth the wait'...
I still haven't found the solution I'm looking for, so I guess I can wait another couple of weeks to see what "Alicia" is all about...
What did you think of Drupalution's MySpace module?
As to popscript, I'm a developer and so my biggest concern is learning the system and being able to modify it, so I get the willies from any solution that isn't Open Source. But I find a $60 script to be especially dubious. Sales for such a script can't be of high enough volume to afford the programmers, unless they're in India and did it really fast.
I haven't looked at it yet..
Right now I'm looking at adapting vBulletin into a combo 'matchmaking/myspace' -style community.
I'm a webmaster, as opposed to a programmer, so I need something that's easy to admin, and vB is easssssssssy.
But a friend says I sould really wait for the release of Alicia from the phpIzabi folks. PhpIzabi is really cool, and Alicia is supposed to be even better (and open source)
What is the topic on the forums of your websites? Thirty THOUSAND is a huge number of members.Its sounds like you've done no promoting/market to get such a huge number, given the lack of financial incentive. This makes my eyes light up
because I have a critical mass problem. In my SNS search engine I want to use a predictive indicator that rules out more than 99% of people, so I need a lot of people in the system for matches to start showing up. Do you do any kind of promotions, or does google hits on archives do most of your promoting for you?
I really like these little gifs, I'm about ready to give up on Drupal since it won't support them.
The topic is related to a specific women's health issue.
The initial site was only content, and a guestbook. The more content I put up, the more the guestbook started to turn into a 'conversation' book, so I added a message board 6 years ago.
Switching to vB was a good move, since the more people post, the more content the site has. The archives are a huge source of traffic. I notice in my own web searches that I often end up at another websites vB archive.
Content is king...if you provide a valuable resource of content to your target audience, and give them a forum (board) to comment on the content, they will keep coming back...but again, content is king.
I also keep a VERY tight rein on my topic. It's VERY narrow. In fact, it's so narrow, it never occurred to me that 500 people in 5 years would find the site.
Guess I was wrong
(If you like smilies, you can add them to your hearts content with vB...we have a ton, all ordered by category. The members love them.)
Even though my friend says that ALICIA is going to be a smokin' application, I'm a bit hesitant, because I don't know if Google can spider the built in forum. No Google = no site for me.
Heh, I was just thinking that yesterday, but I don't think I'll get a lot of visitors from Google searches on forum content, the subject matter is either too esoteric or too broad. I'll have two kinds of content, 1) an extremely accurate but very simple astrological test for relationship intensity which is easy to code into a profile search and 2) a large database of interpretations. There are 600 'aspects', each with a unique interpretation, a couple usually having 20 to 30 in their comparison. I can probably find half a dozen sets of interpretations already typed up on the web, although the first one I found was mediocre. Which is why I want the interpretations to be ratable.
I see why you are fixated on Google finding your site, it never really even occurred to me that Google might have trouble finding pages on sites.
I didn't mean 'forum' content, I meant site content.
That said, if you do have 'forum' content, it's because people are posting in your forum. If they found your site, then other people will too.
You can use the Overture Keyword Tool to see how many searches are performed on keywords related to your topic.
My topic is actually quite narrow. The average person on the street has absolutely never heard of it.
If you're intent is to build a community, they have to be coming together around a central topic...that's what you need to focus on.
If they're just coming to get some type of astrological [service], you aren't really building a community, but a service site.
Personally, I think the more narrow a topic, the easier it is to find a loyal fan base.
For instance, it would be FAR easier to start a forum dedicated to 'Slinky' memorabilia than a forum about 'gadgets' or toys from the 70's.
Do I want to talk about Slinky? No. But I'm sure there are some people who do.
Actually, now that I think about it, I'm going to run a search on Slinky
AstroLife.com is a nice site, but it doesn't do much of what I want to do. I want to give automated astrological evaluations of relationships. It will be undistilled and voluminous, but having more content rather than less could be a virtue here.
I do have a problem here, while astrology is a great match making tool, astrology in and of itself has nothing to do with dating, and dating isn’t even a topic as such, just an intent. I don’t have high hopes for a forum initially. However, I think I have something much more visceral and compelling than a mere topic, but it requires a critical mass of participating members. It is very specific, as you’ve stressed, but in a different way.
There are two aspects in astrology that determine the chemistry between you and a man, the aspect between your venus and his mars, and between your moon and his sun. If his mars is in aspect to your venus then there is a strong physical attraction. If his sun is in aspect to your moon then there is something deeply compelling and masculine about him with a potential for a strong psychic and emotional bond. I’ve never seen an enduring relationship that lacked both of these aspects, except in couples that met as seniors, which read as best friends rather than lovers.
About one in 10 men have their mars in aspect to your venus, and another one in 10 have their sun in aspect to you moon. That one in a hundred who has both will be someone you have an intense electrical reaction too, someone that knocks your socks off. So a large group of people can be broken up into 100 divisions, and within those divisions everyone will have this electric reaction with all members of the opposite sex. But I figure I need to have at least 1000 active members in order to have any activity at all, since that would be only 10 people per board.
If enough people got involved to reach a higher critical mass, I think it could transform society. Even though I’ve almost never seen an enduring relationship that lacked both venus/mars and sun/moon aspects, I’ve seldom seen a relationship that has both. If true love and lifelong intense passion were extremely common rather than extremely rare, the world would be a different place. I think astrology is a lost science that, if applied properly, can really change the world, and it’s main application is in relationships.
Well, MySpace’s forums aren’t much to look at. Most dating sites don’t have any forum at all. Until I reach a critical mass the only forum activity I would expect is in the astrological interpretations themselves. (I want people to be able to comment on interpretations and add their own.)
As for using the astrological service without really using the site – I want this relationship evaluation to work on searched profiles. They’ll also be able to input the birth data, but it is primarily for looking at profiles. It’s like a super-expanded profile.
I think you are definitely right about having something that is narrowly focused. I want boards that are narrowly focused in terms of everyone having very similar or strongly compatible romantic chemistry. It’s not a topic, and ice breaking could be a problem, but it would be a forum exclusively for people who came up as an extremely strong match with you, largely the same people you’d find in a search.
Honestly...I think you're overthinking this.
Your topic [generally speaking] is "astrology & relationships"...Your forum areas could revolve around related discussion areas (relationships at work, at home, people chould offer to read each others charts, people could give advice on making charts, etc.) That's narrow enough, while still leaving room for lots of discussion.
You could have a free 'basic' search like the one at tampaforums.com (acutally, that's a mod of the vBulletin search, so it's acutally more than basic, but for your purposes, I'll call it basic.)
You could then have a premium matching area. Maybe use Dating Box for this, and have the profile fields customized to detailed astrology stuff.
Dating Box can be fully integrated with vBulletin, so both applications will share the same userbase.
Hire a designer to make it all look starry-eyed and pretty, and boom...you're ready to open the doors.
Make the boards free and easy to join...make the dating portion a 'fee service' (or maybe offer free premium meberships to the first 200 members...)
If you don't go with Dating Box, Matrimony Zone (or whatever it's called...the one by Vastal) might also work. It, too, can be integrated with vBulletin.
My advice for you...don't overthink this in the beginning. As your user base grows, their usage patterns of your site will give you more direction, and define what your site is.
I just caught this....
You're kidding me, right? (and I say that with love...)
Are you going to screen every single member who joins? You'll never sleep.
What you want are boards populated by: People who believe and/or are interested in the influence of the stars on their relationships.
Let the chemistry happen from there...
(acutally, I saw two great mods for vBulletin you might like. One autmatically puts a person's sign in their postbit, and the other is a 'secret admirer' add on. Both are great for 'ice breaker' chemistry things...)
there's a myspace like script called phpfox -
http://www.phpfox.com
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