Enterprise Social Networking Platforms
Almost every business and entrepreneur wants a social networking platform and virtual community. If you have a community or want to develop one around your business- the online technology has become so affordable it is often just a matter of customizing free open-source software or paying minimal fees for having your own created by someone else. As the open-source developer community continues to grow, extensive and highly customizable tools are within the grasp of almost any size business.
To help understand the growth of the social networking and community platform industry, sites like CMS Matrix have appeared to rate and compare these platforms. As of this article- there are 915 platforms on the review list. 915!
Blasting through the clutter of 915 platforms, I wanted to present some of the most promising ones. Most of these can be easily setup for your own community/networking websites and can be developed/customized by someone with computer aptitude and willingness to learn.
Wordpress
“WordPress is a state-of-the-art publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability. WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time. More simply, WordPress is what you use when you want to work with your blogging software, not fight it.”
While Wordpress is commonly thought of as a blogging platform, it is actually completely capable of handling forums, thousands of users, sub-groups, and community services. It also has the largest developer community online for an open source platform (which means new features are literally being released every day)
Dolphin 6.1 - Smart Community Builder
“YouTube, MySpace, Odeo, Flickr, Match and Facebook - all in one, customizable and under your full control. You’re limited only by your imagination - not by software. Dolphin Smart Community Builder is a universal, free, open source software that allows you to build any kind of online community. With a huge variety of features & options, you can quickly develop your very unique and successful website.”
Elgg
“Elgg is a robust open source social application engine. Elgg provides elegant, flexible and scalable solutions for organisations, groups and individuals. Take advantage of powerful social technology today. From a full social networking site to an iPhone widget, Elgg can power it all.” The Elgg platform also has a new “how to” book out for users which I recommend- The Elgg Book.
PHPizabi
“PHPizabi is one of the most powerful social networking platforms on the planet. With literally thousands of websites powered by PHPizabi including everything from simple friends sites to the most complex networking super sites out there. Easy to install, use, and raising the bar on what it is to provide a reliable, fast, social networking package to raise your business to the next level.”
Drupal
“Drupal.org is the official website of Drupal, an open source content management platform. Equipped with a powerful blend of features, Drupal supports a variety of websites ranging from personal weblogs to large community-driven websites.” Drupal has a wide range of plugins (it has one of the most active open-source developer communities)
To be Fair… there are also proprietary platforms that are hosting for you, taking the challenge out of building things from the ground up or hiring a professional developer to help with your technical hurdles. Unfortunately, while the cost of developing a social platform may be reduced, you lose the customization options and some control over your own data (I.E. if you use one of these hosted applications, read the user agreement and contract to make sure you know the ramifications of using the service long-term.)
Social Media Applications on Demand: The KickApps hosted platform enables you to easily create, deploy and manage a branded social and rich media community on your website. Sign up now to drive audience growth and engagement on your website, click the control buttons to learn more.
Ning
“Ning offers the latest social networking features, all infinitely customizable to meet your unique needs. The Ning Platform makes this possible. As a platform, you don’t have to appeal to Ning for the features you want. If you have the time and the inclination, you can build them yourself. It’s the software equivalent of Home Depot. Unlike other services that offer a “one-size-fits-all” offering, your social network on Ning runs on a programmable platform.”
Are there any platforms out there you would like to add to this list or have personal experiences with?
I am always more than happy to expand on the useful nuggets of wisdom you can find on the web.
If you would like to see some more options in this space, check out the second article:
PT II - Enterprise Social Media Platforms
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Pingback by Enterprise Social Media Platforms Choices : 123 Social Media on 26 May 2008:
[...] own community. While I would like to say there are obvious differences in the community space for enterprise social media platforms, the most unique quality of these providers is service and assistance. Technically speaking, most [...]
Comment by Zax Stevens on 27 July 2008:
Wow, tell it like it is I say. Social media IS the current king.
Comment by Alister Cameron // Blogologist on 1 September 2008:
You mention Wordpress, which is fair enough, but to be more precise, Buddypress is what we’re all waiting for — the social network “child” of Wordpress, based on Wordpress Multi User. Can’t wait.
Comment by Barry Hurd on 1 September 2008:
I agree Alister… I have been using Buddypress tied to WP for about a year and a half now and would love to see that side project come to fruition.
However Wordpress as a singular blog platform can actually utilize many plugins to create a full social network, check out http://www.stuff.yellowswordfish.com/simplepress-forum for a wonderful plugin. From my perspective: the Wordpress platform’s main strength is in the added functionality of thousands of plugins not included in the main platform.