Best social networking script?

Hi,

Doesn't seem to be a straightforward answer to this.

I'm interested in a social networking script with the following.

1) Bug free
2) Good support (which doesn't cost a fortune)
3) I need the look to be completely changable so I can come up with my own designs etc.
4) Free or paid is fine.

any suggestions?

 

no one has any advice?

 

Hi there -

Well, you could consider the 2007 winner for the PACKT Publishing prize for "Open Source Social Networking Content Management System." Which script? WordPress (see WordPress.org).

Scott Frangos - Managing Editor, WebHelperMagazine.com

 

There are lots of threads on here about this already...why not do a search for it to go through all the social networking scripts recommended by people?

 

Thanks for both the replies.

WordPress is a great script, but its not really flexible enough in the area of social networking for me I think.

I've done a search on here for Social networking scripts, but there doesn't seem to be any good, unbiassed information on what scripts are good/bad. It seem's to me that a lot of people are holding back their opinion's/advice in this area because everyone is seeing social networking as a lucrative area which they don't want to be publicized too much, afraid it will hurt their chances of making money against their competitors.

 

Ok I think I see your point. I think you can get away with building something on Drupal, Ruby on Rails, even Joomla...there are lots of social networks built with these and they look good, really good in fact.

 

Best is a relative word that includes 100s of variables. There are tons of scripts out there, WordPress, Drupal, Joomla etc.. I have a few social networking sites, my latest is Joomla but I would not say its the best, but its the best for what I want to do with it.

 

In my opening post I did lay out what criteria I wanted for a social networking script. I'm thinking more along the lines of Dolphin and Skadate, then Joomla. I've used Joomla before and its great for setting up sites quickly with some nice add on's but its not's not really capable of creating a social network like bebo for example with it, because of the lack of really good media uploading/displaying options (video for example, and I could never get seyret to work).

So a dedicated script is what I was interested in, which is why I wondered if anyone here has any unbiassed views on those...

 

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=147935

 

After seeing all the arguing etc that went on in that thread I was hoping to avoid that, and get some just down to earth pro's and con's of whats available..

 

That thread is currently the best there is on that subject. If you read from the beginning you will notice many opinions from professionals and developers. When you reach the end I'm sure you'll have an answer to your question.

 

I read most of it, and it just seemed to be lots of "developers" talking crap about their competitors and talking great about their own software, and I'm not interested in that. I was hoping to hear from users not developers of their software about the pro's and con's of social networking software.

 

Well as long as the world stands the developers will praise their stuff and the competetors will say this is s..t.

I try to use my own eyes and experience looking at demos.

 

Hello, my name is Irene. I represent SkaDate community and dating script. If you are interested - check out the testimonials by owners of the real live sites powered by SkaDate here http://www.SkaDate.com/testimonials.php
You can see how these sites look and operate.

 

why not take a look at buddypress its run by automatic the same guys who do wordpress and while it's not mature by any means it's pretty fully featured.

 

just my suggestions ->
wordpress MU with buddypress

it is not bugs 100% free,
but good support (by documentation), changeable (using theme), and free

 

I myself am choosing between Dzoic, Phpfox and SE. Dzoic doesn't seem to have a very active community compared to Phpfox and SE I wasn't able to find any community that they run. Good thing about SE is that the design is cute and what's nice with Phpfox is that they're working on a new version that looks really nice compared to their old crappy myspace look-a-like. I like Dzoic because of their admin area.

 

I (although a developer of a dating script) will always recommend: GO CUSTOM. I will not advertise our software, because this advertisement would be false. There is no BEST dating script. All dating scripts are not unique. Yes, abledating has more features than the others, but what of it?

We develop abledating at http://www.abledating.net and have this site also: http://abk-experts.com/
Here you can order a completely unique solution, not to over-saturate the web with clones of different dating software scripts.

There is only one piece of advice one can give here: GO CUSTOM!!! Get an open source solution and change it until it is unique. Of cource it is easier to do this when you have a script with a lot of features like abledating from the beginning.

But it can be any other software script. Skadate, Boonex, PHPFox, whatever. But make your homework, imagine what you would like your site to look like. And answer one simple quiestion: WHY THE USER WILL USE MY SITE AND NOT ALL THE REST?

 

has anyone tried http://chameleon.startsocialnetwork.com ?
looks rather nice but I do not see reviews on this

 

really phpnoob? so which one you finally choosen?