BuddyZone vs. PHPFox vs. Handshakes, which is better for a college social community?

hi chris.

i guess you didn´t really get it yet: we realize high-class websites for international customers such as deutsche bank, nissan, sony mgm, pfizer and warner brothers. it´s NOT that i DONT want to WORK or spent any TIME on a project - the opposite´s true! we DO spend tons of time on projects for our customers. and get a decent amount of money for it! but i do not want to spend UNNECESSARY time on details which i can use somewhere else far more efficiently (as far as the whole project is concerned)...

anyway, BZ is a horror to make it look good (at least in our definition of 'looking good'), and that is our K.O. criteria for not using it.

cheers, martin


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If I was to custom a good looking site for links.com, about how much would it cost? Appreciate any estimates. Thanks.

Rich

 

Well, everything that looks really good takes time and a lot of effort to make, that is no lie.

Providing ready-made templates for customers to use on their social networks is something that needs to be done in a way that can be edited by any developer with ease.

Look at vBulletin or IPB styles, they are hard to develop, point to me to a vB or IPB skinner who thinks his job is easy? But there are a ton of skins for vB and IPB... then you have Wordpress' themes, I really think its layout is a mess, but look at what people are making with it? beautiful themes and most of them are free, it's simple... those softwares have a large fan base and therefore can create pretty themes and templates and share them.

To sum it up, it's does matter that the developer offers skins for your social network, but what really matters the most is what we as a collective force can create and share with the rest.

 

FYI, I'm now re-evaluating Handshakes. There is a way around the MySpace layout issue.

Thanks to Mehdi the spammer, I got to talking to someone at DZOIC. I was being lazy. I should have read their manuals a little more in depth from the beginning. I also should have done more searches. The way their demo is setup is horrible. They tout "accepts MySpace layouts", but when you go into their default demo site it doesn't work. I usually don't stick around to debug a demo, so I decided against them. Glad I gave them a second look.

This is truly a superior product. I'm about 90% convinced, but I'm going to try and wait for Buddy Zone 2.0 to come out. Vastal said it was coming out the first week of July, which ends today, and it's still not out yet. If you compare BZ 1.5 to Handshakes 3.3, HS wins IMO. If BZ 2.0 is not drastically improved, I'm going to go with Handshakes.

as an FYI, I've also looked at...

Ablespace
Alstrasoft E-Friends
Boonex Dolphin
Cool - something (I forget)
PhPFox
PhPIzabi/Alicia (It's worth every penny)

~C

 

Thanks ChrisX, please let me know what you decided to do and why!!!!

 

BuddyZone 2.0 came out yesterday.

Uhhm, lol. This should have been 1.6. The changes were minimal, and of little value, if any at all. This release is definitely not worthy of a major release, and certainly not worthy of my money.

I'm still not firm on Handshakes. It's decent for features, but I'm not very fond of how they run the "business". As a result, I decided to give PHPIzabi another look. I'm still chasing down mods to see if it can be built up to a decent product. Right now, it's lacking with the video mod. The idea of creating a mod to use a video hosting service can only be described as stupid.

There is also no vBulletin integration, which is also just stupid. Their "Inkspot" forum is a turd. When you ask PHPIzabi about it, they refer you to Turdspot. When you ask vBulletin about it, they refer you to more of their boxy blue crap called "zoints" as a SN alternative. I wish companies would stick to what they do best, and stop trying to be everything to everyone. Integration is the key, not half-assed solutions.

The other thing is a clause in the PHPIzabi license agreement about only being able to sell a PHPIzabi site if you have 500 or more registered users. It's completely insane.

They've alienated professional web developers with that line, and as a result have severely inhibited the growth and adoption of the product.

Who wants to learn all their crap if it has no professional value? I have better things to do with my time, like learn something that can add to my resume in some way.

I see you settled on HS, is that correct DJuse? I saw your name in the dzoic forums. How do you like it so far?

~C

 

Hey.

Yeah im making some test with the system for a customer.
I also receive an email informing me that the "new" BZ was out, i went ahead and give the system a look, just the same impression you had, the same thing.

So far Handshakes look like the best option, and with this modification http://www.clubdcs.com/store/product_info.php?cPath=22_23&products_id=29
the users would be able to have a perfect clone of the myspace profile. I hear that the DZOIC guys will incorporate that mod into their system so people don't have to spend those extra $50.

I do believe that it still need a lot of work...but compared to phpFOX and BZ, HS is better.

Now that;s my opinion.

 

Yes, compared to those two HS leads the way.

I've also found a template for PHPIzabi that allows MS templates. It's only $25, and works quite nicely from what I've seen. PHP-Flashchat works great, and it's only $5, but no integration with Izabi yet. Same thing with vBulletin. In fact, that's my big problem with the whole community. A serious lack of integration with anything.
The other problem I'm trying to overcome is the geolocal feature. I tried using a couple of public servers, but no luck. I still can't get it to calculate the distance between users, and I'm not sure how to log what is happening.

It's not just that I don't care much for the DZOIC folks, it's that they run some encrypted code. PHPIzabi, while I'm not interested in doing heavy customization right now, WILL let me change anything I want if I choose to.
So while I know it is missing a LOT OF STUFF, PhpIz is the only option I can find that has a decent foundation, but doesn't charge me $400 for an incomplete solution.

Right about now EJRaven will chime in telling me she has everything I want, but not now, it's coming soon

I'm only kidding Raven

~C

 

LOL yeah, maybe she will, but were is the software? lol

 

Been reading forums for almost 2 days...as I am currently in the process of identifying "SNS" for a project we are working on. Wondering if anyone has heard of, or have experience with Web Scribble?

Since there isn't a leader in this field so to speak....besides functionality, my concerns are:

1) Well written/expandable code.
2) Good features.
3) Good customer service

Having a hard time deciding what direction to go. Since this is kind of in its infancy, this seems like a crap shoot as far as deciding which software to choose. But for now, I am kind of narrowed down to these (in no particular order):

Web Scribble
Handshakes Professional V3.3
PhpFox
PHPizabi

Concern is investing in software that has sloppy code, poor support....no real growth as far as adding features, etc......

Any thoughts/feedback would be helpful.


Thanks!
RR

 

Web Scribble - Seen it, never used it, haven't heard anything beyond their website.

Handshakes Professional V3.3 - Great script, but the company is run like a frat-house. It's great for the here and now, but I'm concerned about long-term simply because they encrypt portions of the code, and I'm not very confident they'll be here in a year. If you read their site they say something like "99% is unencrypted". Then they proceed to tell you what IS encrypted, and it's basically everything that makes it a SN script.

PhpFox - No pre-sales support at all. Every time you ask them a question they throw up a $600 fee for custom development, lol. The folks on the phone are just telemarketers. As I understand it, their recent releases have been fairly weak as well. The whole thing just gives me a bad vibe, so I passed on them early on.

PHPizabi - Think of it as a car with no wheels, no doors, and an AM radio. If you know how to bolt some doors on, and install some wheels, I'm sure the car will perform very well. If you actually want people to enjoy it, you have to put a decent stereo in it too . All in all, it's worth every penny they charge in its current state, but with some serious improvements it could be a formidable player in the SN market.

Does that about sum it up everyone?

~C

 

Appreciate your feedback.....would certainly like to hear any feedback you have regarding other products that I didn't mention......that you may have experience with. I am not bound to any product at this point. Trying my best to make a good decision....which at this point..seems like it will be impossible.

So, what product did you choose to go with??


Thanks,
RR

 

I haven't completely decided yet, but due to time constraints it will more than likely be Handshakes.

If I can find a good video mod, integration for FlashChat and vBulletin, as well as a more enhanced blog function, it will be PHPIzabi.

Handshakes already has Flashchat, and integrates with vBulletin. Their video mod is about 90% there, but does not do watermarking from the admin panel. You have to go straight to FFMPeg.

I should know sometime in the next two or three weeks. Above all, I'm not racking my brains to write the missing stuff myself.

~C

 

No telephone number is listed on their website. Little fishy if you ask me. Can't imagine a software company not wanting potential customers to call them. Obviously they don't want existing customers to call either.

Do you have a number for them?

 

Yeah dzoic don't have phone support but they do answer to the web support question fast.
The forum is a little crazy and only one guy from the support team use the forum so don't bother to use it.
For now i believe that HS is the best on it's class even no been 100% open source.
The only think that i don't like about HS is that there are not to many people making mods for it and for a simple modification a guy on the forum will ask you for $500, $1000 and even more, I saw a guy that posted a thread asking for someone to give his site a whole new look, and that his budged was like $1000 and the guy on the forum basically laughed on his face. And the customer just wanted to give his site a new look, so basically all he was asking was for a new theme for the site, I don't think that a simple mod for any of these scripts should cost more than the script itself, the price of any modification should be bellow the main script price, at the end all you are doing is adding or modifying something in a site that have been already made. So if you are a not a coder and will have to be paying for every single modification, then HS is not the best choice.
The phpFOX in the other hand does have a lot of cheaps mods but the core system is a piece of crap.
phpIZABI have a great structure, and the core system rum great, if i was a coder i would stick with that software, #1 it's free and #2 it have a lot of great mods that ranged from $3 to $45 wish i believe is really acceptable. And it's really, really fast.

For now and since im not a coder...Im sticking wit HS.
In a couple of years i will start working on phpIZABI

Hope this help!

 

What about Buddy Zone? Anyone have experience with it at all?

Looks like they are located out of India. For those who have used it, does this make support problematic??

http://www.vastal.com/buddy-zone-social-networking-script.html

I am leaning away from HS..as I don't feel comfortable working with a company that will not provide a phone number for support.

 

BZ since to be ok, but they take just to much times to update the script, for example the preview update was on the start of 2006 and just now they released a new version (with i checked and it have almost anything new other than changing the places of some stuff). The preview version was 1.5 and this one is 2.0 so i believe that they are trying to cover the delay by jumping a couple of numbers.

 

Just spoke to BZ and here are the additions made since last version, which he says was in January '07 (soa bout 7 months).

photo albums module was added
games module was added
shoutbox was added
ajax was used on various pages to make navigation easy
simplified forums
many sql enhancements

Can any users of BZ verify this?

 

BZ is just one guy apparently. DZOIC (Handshakes) seems to be a small team, and they do respond to emails rather quickly. They also install the script for you for free, so support may not be necessary in the beginning. I would still install it myself, but that's a nice offer.

Personally, I've forgotten about BZ. The last straw was when I was in their forum, and a user asked about them bundling a chat with the product. The developer (Ankur Jain) pointed the guy to a service that costs several dollars a month as an alternative instead of entertaining the idea of adding the function, which most other scripts have these days. For what the guy is charging (compared to other scripts) he should be hanging on every word from a customer. It's not like he HAS all that many customers to begin with.

I just didn't like the way he handled the request. If a software developer doesn't acknowledge feedback from the user community, then the product is ultimately doomed to fail. Aside from that, the layout is pure slop. It would take me FAR too long to customize that script whereas DZOIC is much more friendly to customization. The only saving grace for BZ is that the code is not encrypted.

Oh yeah, he also said there would be vBulletin integration in 2.0, which is NOT there. Instead, he integrates with that IPB thing. vBulletin is not open to negotiation, I am using it and that's all there is to it. So even if everything else were there, I'd still pass.

I say go with Handshakes, unless you want to do the work, then go with PHPIzabi.

~C

 

LOL...they released the new version like 2 weeks ago... I know that because i was waitting for then to do it before i decide for then or another product.
they might be started 7 month ago but believe me that version was released like 2 weeks ago..i even have the email they send to me when they took that out.
But BZ look good. Look, it's all about what you like, if you like the way BZ work then go ahead and buy that one, if you like phpFOX and buy it...the best thing is that you feel comfortable working with something you like. All of these scripts have it's pros and cons...one have what the other don't and so on!
I personally like HS for only one thing that they've added to the system, and that's the ability to import your members from vBulletin (and other scripts as well), i own a large vbulletin forum and would like to migrate my members. So as you can see, what one have the other doesn't. Just continue making your researches and compare then, and choice the one that you believe meet your requirements, one of then may have things that you will never use, while the other might have just what you need.