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With the release of Dolphin 6.0 by Boonex, a new open source social networking script has emerged. While previous versions of Dolpin (5.6 and below) had social networking features, they were still essentially dating scripts with social networking functionality added on. Version 6.0 represents a fundamental effort by Boonex to make Dolphin a social networking platform first and a dating site and CMS second. The question is, does it succeed? How does it compare to other social networking scripts such as phpIzabi and phpFox? We will look at Dolphin 6.0 critically and find its faults and benefits. Read the rest of this entry »

In the landscape of on-line social networking, two players stand head and shoulders above the rest. The largest social network, Myspace claims over 300 million accounts while Facebook has over 60 million users. We should note that the number of accounts does not necessarily equal the number of users. Both sites share many similarities outside being the two largest social networks in the world, but there are also many differences between them. We will take a closer look at both Myspace and Facebook and perhaps discover some of the things that make on-line social networking compelling.

If there was one bullet point in which to describe Myspace, it would be a platform to allow users to (almost) freely create their own personal web page and share it with others. Facebook, on the other hand, focuses on bringing the off-line friends of its users together on-line to keep them up to date on the user’s life and activities. The aforementioned description itself highlights the major differences between the two networks. Let’s take a deeper dive. Read the rest of this entry »

When looking at the landscape of forum software, it’s clear that current forum offerings have been surpassed by social networking software as a way of connecting people. Forums today are basically the same as they were years ago when the new php-based forum packages first appeared. Forums are all about posting and replying. Meanwhile, social networking sites such as Myspace, Facebook, and Bebo include a forum, but they also offer many more ways for users to interact. While most forum software, including vBulletin, phpBB, and IPB do forums better than any forum within a social networking site, in today’s fast changing Internet landscape, users want different ways to connect to each other. Forums are an important part of today’s top member-based sites, but not the central part.

Perhaps you are interested in starting a new website intended to gather people together who share a like interest. In days past, you would have started a forum. But in the post Myspace era, you will likely attract more people by offering social networking functionality to your site. So you look at top social networking scripts such as phpFox and BuddyZone, but because this is a relatively new field, you don’t really know how well these scripts will work. Meanwhile, the old forum script standbys have a proven track record of scaling to millions of users and millions of posts and are used by many large websites. Yet they lack any social networking functionality. On the surface, that is true, but under the hood, when you look at the infrastructure of a forum script, it becomes apparent that it is built on the same foundation as a social networking site. So that begs the question, rather than use a currently existing social networking script, is it possible to use a forum script as the basis of a social networking site? Let’s take a look at this possiblity. Read the rest of this entry »