[jasbell]

Thank you Cyburbia, and ALL of you for discussing this angle. Its funny because I am really looking for a "group centered" online community platform. It just happens that ANY social network has got to include a forum, and VB is the leader. There are other alternatives, but when you look at whats in the admin console alone, its obvious that the VB people have been paying close attention to users for the last 4 years.

I started by looking for a CMS (CMS Matrix), soon decided on Drupal and began looking for forum plugins etc. Problem was developers had to know Drupal in an out to do the careful surgery thats required in really doing what you want with it. EX: The equivilant of "User CP" in Drupal sits in a menu that to move into another menu would require careful surgery. I know because I ran into this with a major Drupal developer. I figured, "screw this", there has got to be something better that is farther along.

I then considered online offerings, many of which were free and had forums:

• www.multiply.com
• www.facebook.com
• www.collectivex.com
• www.orkut.com
• www.myspace.com
• www.vox.com

These were limited because I couldn't control the "branding", couldn't track users, couldn't customize the profile info, and most were "individual centric" as opposed to "group centric". All of them put a ceiling on how well you were able to reach and expand on your constituency.

Then I ran into this posting (see Gideon Marken comment) a month ago and went on a new tangent. After further searching I cam up with this list for "do-it yourself" social networking software:

• http://www.spartasocialnetworks.com
• http://www.communityserver.com/
• http://www.crowdfactory.com/
• http://www.fiveacross.com/
• http://www.kickapps.com/
• http://www.phpfox.com/
• http://www.smallworldlabs.com/
• http://www.socialplatform.com/
• http://www.socialnetworkserver.com/ (Gideon Marken's own platform - www.gideonmarken.com)
• http://zoints.com/ (at the time I couln't figure out what this was exactly)
• http://www.dzoic.com/
• http://www.phpizabi.net/
• http://www.2coolcode.com/ourspace/index.shtml
• http://www.vastal.com/full_desc.php?soft_id=39
• http://www.esnips.com
• http://www.boonex.com
• http://www.barnraiser.org/index.php?item_id=25
• http://www.onesite.com/
• http://elggspaces.com
• http://www.softwaremarketingresource.com
• http://www.trampolinesystems.com
• http://www.acadaca.com/Social-Networks.html
• http://www.alstrasoft.com/efriends.htm
• http://www.webscribble.com/products/...rk/index.shtml
• http://www.me.com/
• http://www.xceog.net/aboutmeproduct.php
• http://www.sossoon.net
• http://www.socialclix.com/
• http://www.corespeed.com/site/index.html

Many of these were 10-15k per yr. Some were $300 + a yearly upgrade fee. Some were either free or $300/month but they put advertising on your site and shared advertising revenue. Some were reportedly buggy and working on developing a brand new system. 97% OF THEM DID NOT EVEN RETURN MY REQUEST FOR INFORMATION AFTER SUBMITTING A REQUEST TO THE SALES SEPT. (Imagine what their support would be like).

In the end I decided to try PhpFox, which was economical ($300), no questions money-back within 30 days, and seemed to have all that I needed. After doing some searching I started to read a lot of complaints about them. Within days I realized that a tree was more responsive, and that their user profile was not really customizable by any reasonable expectation. After 10 days of futzing around I got my money back only after having to call my credit card company to file a dispute.

I had thought of VBulletin in the past however, but wanted more than a Forum. I had knew that they were the leader and had a powerful platform. I was looking for the capability of customizable profiles and a forum. It turned out that VB had even more, and actually 90% of what I needed. I just want to brand and customize it.

This leaves me where you all are now, and where I am as well. How do I extend VB, use its powerful control features, authentication, authorization, and build the rest of my community around it? I now need an invitation mechanism as well, and I am having a hard time with that decision.

I am willing and interested to share my experiences with ANY of you, and I would like to be able to speak with any of you regarding your specific experiences with VB add-ons, products, hacks, integrations, and ESPECIALLY APPROACHES..

If interested in any of this please send me a PM with your contact info...I prefer Skype.

Jonathan