I meant to blog this ages ago. It’s a list of open source social platforms and tools – some of which would be very useful for Digital Circle or similar groups.
Elgg– Social networking engine Elgg coming soon in two flavors – Classic Elgg and the soon to be released Elgg 1.0. Elgg looks very ‘facebook’-y and might be useful for a group of real-world contacts who have a lot of interest together – perhaps a club around a community?
Pligg – An OS content management system providing an interactive website for users to submit, vote and discuss web-based content. This is, more than anything,a DIGG/REDDIT clone. But it’s going to be one way for groups who would normally email each other with news headlines with an RSS-based web site which will provide all those features and more.
MaharaРE-portfolio social networking software developed for the education community, and including a r̩sum̩ builder/digital CV. The Mahara project is based in New Zealand, with partner organisations in Japan and the UK.. This would seem to be the most suitable for something like Digital Circle Рpart of the plan is to create some sort of profile of the Northern Ireland industry so that if we need to find skilled people, we need look no further than down the street rather than looking across the seas and oceans.
There are other tools and platforms on that web site – these are just the ones which inspired me.