Ashish Kumar from Tekriti Software » Social Networks

Why is PeopleAggregator special?

Ashish — Fri, 26 May 2006 12:00:26 +0000

This is a continuation of my previous post “Why is GoingOn special“. In this one, I am going to talk about why is PeopleAggregator special for us:

In the first look, you will notice a lot of similarities in the 2 systems: GoingOn (referred to as GO, subsequently) and PeopleAggregator (referred to as PA) – since these both are social networks and let you create social networks on the fly. But, as you look closely, you will notice that these differ a lot in their treatment of the concepts. I hope to provide an insight into the differentiation through this post.

New platform to create social networks, built from scratch: Like GoingOn, PeopleAggregator also lets you create social networks on the fly but the programming model is very different in the 2 systems. While GoingOn is built on the top of Drupal, PeopleAggregator code architecture is object oriented built from scratch using PHP5. There are a set of programmers who prefers one approach from the other and this model will suit them more.
Code will be available for download, for the basic use: Apart from being a hosted platform for people to create their social networks, PeopleAggregator code will also be available for download free for ‘basic’ use – shortly. There will be a licensing model for the other use. So, you can go to the site, and join or spawn off your networks. Alternatively, you can also download the code, set it up which can create a social network – which, in turn, can spawn off multiple social networks themselvs.
Meta Network functionality and Structured Blogging Integration: The 2 systems (GO and PA) are very identical in their treatment of meta-network concept, with ability to create social networks on the fly and making them discoverable through a network directory. Apart from this – PeopleAggregator also utilizes StructuredBlogging as its default content publishing platform.
Notion of Private and Public Pages: Haven’t you ever felt the need of having a separate version of your page when you look at it as compared to when others look at it? On a private page – the need is felt for a different layout, different controls, different color themes, etc. PeopleAggregator solves it by providing 2 different pages for a user to customize – your private page and your public page.
Groups inside a Network: Not only can you create a network, you can also create groups inside a network to create a sub-community with similar interests. A group also has a group blog, a group media gallery.
PeopleAggregator APIs to interact with the other systems: Open APIs is the way to go. PeopleAggregator exposes APIs to create a group, establish a relation with another member, post and retrieve blogs, add and send messages – and this list will only grow with time.
Multiple ID login system: One of the most novel feature is to provide multiple ID login system. So, if you want to login to a PeopleAggregator system – you don’t have to be a registered member of the site. You can login using your Flickr account, for example, and the system will pull in your profile details in the system.
Marc Canter: Oh, of course, how can anything about PeopleAggregator be complete without mentioning that it’s totally a brain-child of Marc Canter.

PeopleAggregator is under closed alpha now and will be opened to general public at the end of the next month. If you are interested more in this, you should keep an eye on Marc’s blog for the updates and announcements.

So – both the systems have their own place in the world and are excellent systems (Disclaimer: Both the products are built by my company and we are proud of both). They are just catering to a different audience.

Why is GoingOn special?

Ashish — Tue, 23 May 2006 14:03:26 +0000

Most of the projects that we do in Tekriti are special to me, as one of the selection criteria is their coolness and utility value. This criteria is one which is very important as it allows us to be very upbeat and excited about the stuff we do. But I will single out 2 projects currently for a special mention – GoingOn and PeopleAggregator. These are 2 products which are very special to my company. In this post, I am going to talk about GoingOn and the next post will be dedicated to PeopleAggregator – I will talk about the other projects with time and as we make further progress.

As the text on the site says: “GoingOn is a growing network of corporate, media, nonprofit, and individual brand networks that share on a common weblog publishing and community management platform”

Few of the points, in no particular order, which makes the system special are:

First complete meta-network: GoingOn is the first system which lets you create social networks on the fly. You can choose the name of the network, specify a URL, upload the logo and banner images, specify the network categories and tags, choose the layout in terms of number of columns, choose the color themes, etc. It also maintains a network directory, which is used to discover more networks of a particular interest. We provide a single sign-on to all the networks, where ‘Joining a Network’ is pretty straight-forward.
Hosted social network, with a subscription model for paid networks: The business model for the platform revolves around hosting the social network for you. So, whether it’s a basic (free) network or one of the paid networks, GoingOn hosts the network for you – so that you don’t have to worry about maintaining it. If it’s a paid network, you just have to pay a monthly fee which depends upon the type of network you are creating.
Micro-content creation using Structured Blogging as the default publishing platform: The content publishing platform not only lets you create blogs but other micro-content like Reviews, Events, Audio, Video, People Showcase utilizing Structured Blogging – implicitly supporting the micro-formats. This will be the first social network again which uses Structured Blogging as the default publishing platform.
Network Customization: Not only can you choose from various layouts and the color themes, you can also customize the homepage of your network by placing various modules / blocks in the left, right and center of the homepage. Apart from this, you can also dynamically customize a top-level tab of the network and put relevant content in it. So – a ecommerce site will want to put a ‘Products’ tab there but a Blog may have ‘About’ tab – it all depends upon the network administrator.
Member Page Customization: As a user, you have an option to customize ‘your page’. You have a set of modules to choose from (and the list will only keep growing with time) like ‘My Tags’, ‘My Flickr’, ‘My Media Gallery’, ‘My Connections’, ‘My Networks’ which can be enabled / disabled and moved around on the page.
People Subscription: The RSS feed for a person will not only have their blogs but will have their other micro-content and media gallery, essentially making it a compound feed.
Access Control: All profile fields have access control – so you can make individual fields visible to everybody, by categories of connections (friends, online connection, lead,clients, family, etc.) , to only 1st degree friend, to only 2nd degree friends, etc.
Web Services Integration: Apart from the commonly used web-services like Flickr, delicious in social networks, GoingOn provides you services provided by other Web 2.0 companies from within the system. So – if you can power feed management through Newsgator, you can also export your contacts to Salesforce and get the online reputation management done by Opinity. The list will only grow and I will provide my experiences with each as and when we do the integration.
Advanced Editorial publishing system: The platform also gives a network administrator functionality to invite authors, editors who can create editorial posts. These posts appear separate from the Member Posts (Blogs, etc.) and gives the administrator appropriate permissions to place the 2 content appropriately on the homepage. It also gives network administrators advanced back-of-the-house tools for content and member management.
Personal Blog and External Blogs: Every GoingOn member gets a GoingOn blog and flexibility to add multiple external blogs. The GoingOn system will not only display the posts from External blogs but also lets you route your posts from your GoingOn blog to your external blogs.

If you want to know more about the platform, take a tour here and then create an account yourself and play with the system.

Look forward to our Beta release next month – I will have a lot more to write when we make the announcement.

Disclaimer: All the features I have mentioned above are not still built in the system but we will keep adding them with time.

OnHollywood conference over

Ashish — Fri, 05 May 2006 21:18:50 +0000

One of the things that was on the top of my priority list, the past few days, was planning the online network for the OnHollywood conference that Tony Perkins and AlwaysOn organizes. The conference started on May 2nd, 2006 and got over on May 4, 2006. The entire team worked hard for it and enjoyed the fact that the system was used by a lot of real people with the member count of the network as around 40,000 members (courtesy migrated members from AlwaysOn)

OnHollywood conference network was hosted as one of the network on the GoingOn system – a hosted network of networks. We disabled creation of network functionality during the conference so that we don’t change too many variables at a time and we wanted to see how does the system react during the actual use and not just simulated use.

The next step is planning for a public Beta where we will be enabling a lot of features which were disabled so far deliberately. So, if you haven’t checked out, check out the OnHollywood network – create an account for yourself or log-in and check the “My Member Page” customizaton. More customizations will be allowed to a network administrator – that will be visible once you create a network as we enable the functionality.

The video archives of the OnHollywood 2006 Panels is here, if you are interested.