This question gets asked almost every other day . Best answered as soon as possible.
Customised Social Network: Social networks built on the request from a client
Template Driven Social Network: Social Networks built using tools available online
Ok so right at the start of developing Kwiqq the problem we wanted to solve is: “How to help people build successful social networks ?” First thing which sprung to our minds was: lets build a Wordpress for social network. Well within a month of being in business we realised that it is not the way forward. So the obvious question is:
Why does it work for blog software and not for social networking software?
Social networks functionality relies on the niche it is serving. For instance a social network aimed at older generation needs to be more focused on usability and interface with core features. This implies that not only the interface but also the functionality is different. Whilst for a blog the look and feel changes. Clients may also request additional moderation tools which can be built on top of Wordpress’s framework.
Now Social networks consist of several tools eg: profile, search, video, blog….. All these tools can’t be built with the assumption that they would have universal functionality. There are hardly any examples of successful social networks based on templated social networking builders, for a reason.
Although saying that templated social networks can be useful if the aim is to :
- Experiment with social networks
- Proof of concept for individuals
- Emphasis is on saving resources as oppose to usability etc
Our approach now at Kwiqq is to save time using our experience in developing social networks combined with some modules we feel could be useful for our toolset. Although a lot of our work at the moment is bespoke.
The underlined idea is: We want to help people/client make a successful social network.
Tags: SocialNetwork, Blog, Template, Customised, Wordpress