Social networking site with C5
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Hi all,
I am evaluating technologies for a social-based site that is more along the lines of a specific niche/intent-based theme than something that is all-for everyone. Think more like Linkedin and less like Facebook (whereas Linkedin is business focused as its "intent").
I want to choose the right platform and none jump out at me as something that would be truly a good fit:
Acquiq - Drupal Commons is more of a corporate-owned social site where users share, but always are kind of looked over by the corporation (I want something more organic). Drupal is good because the back-end framework allows for much along the lines of application development.
Joomla JomSocial seems pretty good, and is one way I am looking to go.
I really like Concrete5 and would love to help out this great framework but I am concerned that the "static intent" of this framework would not be flexible enough to run an agile social networking site.
"Agile" in this sense would be something that would (obviously if all goes well) be able to scale to thousands of concurrent users and allow us the agility to add new applications in and MANAGE them through the dashboard easily.
I know that you can add functionality to C5 I am just wondering the barrier to entry for C5 compared to something like Joomla, as I don't want to risk future agility.
I am planning on spending over $10K on this, so I have a dev budget to work with, but not a dev budget that can withstand major technology changes down the road if I don't have to...any thoughts?
I am evaluating technologies for a social-based site that is more along the lines of a specific niche/intent-based theme than something that is all-for everyone. Think more like Linkedin and less like Facebook (whereas Linkedin is business focused as its "intent").
I want to choose the right platform and none jump out at me as something that would be truly a good fit:
Acquiq - Drupal Commons is more of a corporate-owned social site where users share, but always are kind of looked over by the corporation (I want something more organic). Drupal is good because the back-end framework allows for much along the lines of application development.
Joomla JomSocial seems pretty good, and is one way I am looking to go.
I really like Concrete5 and would love to help out this great framework but I am concerned that the "static intent" of this framework would not be flexible enough to run an agile social networking site.
"Agile" in this sense would be something that would (obviously if all goes well) be able to scale to thousands of concurrent users and allow us the agility to add new applications in and MANAGE them through the dashboard easily.
I know that you can add functionality to C5 I am just wondering the barrier to entry for C5 compared to something like Joomla, as I don't want to risk future agility.
I am planning on spending over $10K on this, so I have a dev budget to work with, but not a dev budget that can withstand major technology changes down the road if I don't have to...any thoughts?
I kinda agree of course with 12345j but I just have to point out that contacting any of these forums (C5, drupal, joomla, liferay, etc.) probably on all forums you will get answers that "yes, this system is the best possible choice for your problem". I was actually quite shocked that the first answer was not 100% like that. :) I actually wanted to wait for the first answer before answering myself here.
I'd say that in any custom project there CAN BE actually troubles "adding new content through dashboard". E.g. with custom modules/add-ons there are so many things that can go wrong but I'd say this problem is with ANY system and the only way to solve that is proper testing (as you probably already know) and software development process with every increment.
So I'm with 12345j with the issues that:
- Yes, there are no troubles handling even big traffic with C5, it's more about your server architecture than the system behind
- Yes, you can easily add things to your C5 installation
However, I will point out, unlike many other C5 developers, that C5 is still quite young as an OSS project compared to the other "possible competitors" in this situation. Therefore, there is quite a bunch of code in the core currently that isn't probably that well thought-out in the long term and there are even some quite messy bits of code, too.
By no means I want to "pull the carpet under c5's feet" but I'd say you should hire a team of technical people for your project who are already familiar with the system. But again, this applies to ANY system you would work with.
As conclusion:
- C5 is easily extendable
- C5 does NOT have completely "static intent"
- C5 can handle big sites
- Hire people who are already familiar with the system of your choice to get the best results (I know this is quite obvious, but believe me MANY have gone the wrong way with this one)
- And again as 12345j pointed out: define your goal very clearly when comparing the systems with each other
Best,
Antti / Mainio
I'd say that in any custom project there CAN BE actually troubles "adding new content through dashboard". E.g. with custom modules/add-ons there are so many things that can go wrong but I'd say this problem is with ANY system and the only way to solve that is proper testing (as you probably already know) and software development process with every increment.
So I'm with 12345j with the issues that:
- Yes, there are no troubles handling even big traffic with C5, it's more about your server architecture than the system behind
- Yes, you can easily add things to your C5 installation
However, I will point out, unlike many other C5 developers, that C5 is still quite young as an OSS project compared to the other "possible competitors" in this situation. Therefore, there is quite a bunch of code in the core currently that isn't probably that well thought-out in the long term and there are even some quite messy bits of code, too.
By no means I want to "pull the carpet under c5's feet" but I'd say you should hire a team of technical people for your project who are already familiar with the system. But again, this applies to ANY system you would work with.
As conclusion:
- C5 is easily extendable
- C5 does NOT have completely "static intent"
- C5 can handle big sites
- Hire people who are already familiar with the system of your choice to get the best results (I know this is quite obvious, but believe me MANY have gone the wrong way with this one)
- And again as 12345j pointed out: define your goal very clearly when comparing the systems with each other
Best,
Antti / Mainio
Back before we went open source, many of the projects we used concrete cms
for were social networking or community driven sites. We've built quite a
few complex networks of content and functionality for clients, most of
which are defunct now.
So yes, as a framework concrete5 will serve you well for that stuff.
Explore the My Account area - its easy to drape on quite a lot of
functionality there. Learn about single pages. Typically we would create
actual pages, owned by users, managed through single page interfaces to do
things like run a music community or school organizational tool.
10k is not going to buy you a tremendous amount of technical development in
this direction however. If I were starting a business that combined content
and community I might look for something that did at least 80% of what I
wanted out of the box, and then prove to myself (or investors) that it was
a viable idea before building something from the framework level up. To
give you a sense of scale, most of the community sites we were working on
in those days were 6 figure deals with the first working iteration coming
in around the 50k mark.
best wishes
Franz Maruna
CEO - concrete5.org
http://about.me/frz
for were social networking or community driven sites. We've built quite a
few complex networks of content and functionality for clients, most of
which are defunct now.
So yes, as a framework concrete5 will serve you well for that stuff.
Explore the My Account area - its easy to drape on quite a lot of
functionality there. Learn about single pages. Typically we would create
actual pages, owned by users, managed through single page interfaces to do
things like run a music community or school organizational tool.
10k is not going to buy you a tremendous amount of technical development in
this direction however. If I were starting a business that combined content
and community I might look for something that did at least 80% of what I
wanted out of the box, and then prove to myself (or investors) that it was
a viable idea before building something from the framework level up. To
give you a sense of scale, most of the community sites we were working on
in those days were 6 figure deals with the first working iteration coming
in around the 50k mark.
best wishes
Franz Maruna
CEO - concrete5.org
http://about.me/frz
I've aided in the development of a corporate intranet that is nearly it's own facebook built entirely on C5 for a pretty large core of users...around 400. that's not thousands, but speaking honestly, it's all load balancing after that. Not a bid deal.
There are more and more addons supporting the Concrete Wall addon (I think J12345 did that?) which feels extremely social and works perfectly with user profiles. c5wall is also really easy to implement with nearly any addon in the marketplace.
So I think C5 is a great, flexible choice for sure.
I agree with Franz and others...outline clearly what you want. Budget accordingly. The simpler the cheeper obviously.
ChadStrat
There are more and more addons supporting the Concrete Wall addon (I think J12345 did that?) which feels extremely social and works perfectly with user profiles. c5wall is also really easy to implement with nearly any addon in the marketplace.
So I think C5 is a great, flexible choice for sure.
I agree with Franz and others...outline clearly what you want. Budget accordingly. The simpler the cheeper obviously.
ChadStrat
Thanks Franz,
This kind of gives me what I wanted to know. As you are one of the main owners/dev for C5 your opinion is very important....There are add-ons for Joomla, for example (JomSocial) that cost around $150 that give much of the functionality I would be looking for. Anything on top of that or leveraging that code would then be an exercise in tweaking, etc...which would be correspondingly less expensive than initial creation.
If the sites you talk about cost $100K plus or $50K for a first iteration, then that means that much of the work for C5 would have to be custom., and not something that build on a publicly available "good start" from some existing codebase. While I like C5 tremendously, and am enthused by the changes coming up in 5.5, I might have to do this specific project in another framework if the level of custom/expensive code for C5 would be that much to implement.
Thanks for all the feedback, everyone, appreciate it!
This kind of gives me what I wanted to know. As you are one of the main owners/dev for C5 your opinion is very important....There are add-ons for Joomla, for example (JomSocial) that cost around $150 that give much of the functionality I would be looking for. Anything on top of that or leveraging that code would then be an exercise in tweaking, etc...which would be correspondingly less expensive than initial creation.
If the sites you talk about cost $100K plus or $50K for a first iteration, then that means that much of the work for C5 would have to be custom., and not something that build on a publicly available "good start" from some existing codebase. While I like C5 tremendously, and am enthused by the changes coming up in 5.5, I might have to do this specific project in another framework if the level of custom/expensive code for C5 would be that much to implement.
Thanks for all the feedback, everyone, appreciate it!
If you're looking for a full-featured system, I recommend taking a look at Boonex. I built a local business network using it.
http://www.boonex.com
Otherwise, if you're looking for a more simplified platform, Concrete is ideal.
http://www.boonex.com
Otherwise, if you're looking for a more simplified platform, Concrete is ideal.
It look like there are some interest on building social network on Concrete5.
but existing add on is not enough
http://www.concrete5.org/marketplace/addons/-/view/?submit_search=1...
I hope concrete5 developer or other developer trying to build the add on for social network.
or maybe somebody can open source their add on to public
I think not that difficult, especially somebody already do this before.
just my 2c
but existing add on is not enough
http://www.concrete5.org/marketplace/addons/-/view/?submit_search=1...
I hope concrete5 developer or other developer trying to build the add on for social network.
or maybe somebody can open source their add on to public
I think not that difficult, especially somebody already do this before.
just my 2c
from what you say, c5 can add complex applications through the package format.http://www.concrete5.org/documentation/how-tos/developers/shopping_... is a good example of an application. concrete5.org runs c5, and it handles almost a hundred thousand users, the core team adds/removes features periodically without trouble.
if you could be more specific on the type of social network you want, then it would probably be easier to help.