BusinessWeek reports that IBM has been experimenting with social bookmarking and social networking systems in house. Beehive, their social networking application, has 30,000 employees using the software.
Kairosnews editors have been planning on exploring how social networking might be effective for this community as well. Once Drupal 5x contributed modules necessary for building such a site get converted to Drupal 6x, expect to see major changes here on Kairosnews.
what about diigo
I've been playing with Diigo lately and find it potentially quite useful, although it does have so many features that they could daunt new users. Has anyone tried it?
Have you looked at Elgg?
Elgg is an open source social networking application that is extremely flexible, allowing it to be integrated with other web applications (like Drupal). The value in looking at a system designed natively for social networking is that you get more complete functionality, which isn't always true of 3PD components designed as add-ons for other web apps.
A new, improved version of the framework is due this summer, so it might be something to take a look at as well.
Scott Crumpler
Capitalism & Culture Blog
ELGG has always seemed a
ELGG has always seemed a great app to look at for people wanting to use social networking in the classroom. However, Kairosnews has too much legacy content. There are approx 5000 blog posts and a similar number of comment posts. Rather than using a separate application which will plug in to provide social networking features, we'll be building outward from the existing content using Drupal plugins.
That being said, Drupal began with an emphasis on "community plumbing" long before anyone thought about social networking. That focus has affected its development ever since. I think people will be surprised at what is possible with this CMS when it comes to social networking features.
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Charlie | cyberdash
Just putting it out there. :)
No doubt about that. I was only bringing up Elgg, in case you guys hadn't checked it out before.
But that's what I meant about its ability to integrate well with other applications. The registration process for new users would be virtually transparent, and no content would have to necessarily be migrated out of Drupal. You could theoretically design the front-end to leverage both applications seamlessly.
Anyway, just thought I'd mention it!
Cheers,
Scott Crumpler
Capitalism & Culture Blog