social networking headaches, i need HONESTY

ok, i've been surfing through these forums for many months now, and i've finally decided to start my own thread and see what i can come up with.

i know this question is asked here all the time, sorry if you're tired of hearing about it, but i'm at my wits end with this nonsense.

i need a GOOD social networking script. i've spent months researching everything out there. none of them have exactly what i'm looking for already built in, but i'm willing to pay extra for those customizations. basically all i'm looking for is a stable core to build upon. i'm not a php developer, i understand a bit, but i'm in no way a guru or anything, if i was i'd build this myself instead of buying it.

i need to know what program/script/software will remain stable and speedy for a community of 100,000 to 500,000 members strong.

everywhere i look i get biased and contradictory opinions. many recommend phpfox, but many more do not. i'm not interested in phpizabi as the problems within their management/ownership almost guarantee their demise. i've looked into handshakes, but i've yet to find a community built on their code with a sizable member base. plus I've found many many mispellings within their demos. I've looked into Drupal, but that totally confuses me and it doesnt look like it was even created for the purpose of social networking (maybe i haven't spent enough time actually looking at it). i've also looked in Boonex Dolphin, and even though it looks really nice, i haven't seen many positive comments about it at all. i've looked into community mods for vbulletin and invision boards, but they dont even come close. I really like SocialEngine.net, but i can't find anyone actually using their program, much less anyone talking about it. i guess that was is just too new. My favorite by far is Joovili, but again, i cant find anything about it anywhere. i'm also not interested in hosted or encrypted solutions. i want to buy the code, not rent it.

bottomline: i need a fast, lightweight SN program that can handle a VERY BUSY site with a LARGE member base without melting my severs or pissing off my members. it doesn't have to be free. It seems everyone has a problem with paying $400 for these types of programs. I dont. I'll pay $2k-$5k for something that's worth it. Price isn't that big of an issue.

also, i dont plan to run this script in a shared hosting environment. I rent a shelf at The Planet with several dedicated servers. I dont think it matters much, but i've heard some talk of certain scripts not working well with shared hosting. this is also not an issue.

thanks for any help you can provide

 

If price isnt really an issue...I would highly recommend Pringo http://www.pringo.com/ or vibEngine http://www.vibecapital.com/

If you go with either of those...I am sure you won't disappointed.

Have you reviewed this http://www.techcrunch.com/wp-content/white_label_social_networking_solutions_chart2.html

I am in a similar situation to you...but price is an issue for me. I have been offered partnerships by a few companies that are out of my price range but haven't decided yet if thats the way we should go.

I hope you get some insight and be sure to update what you decide on and how it works out for you.

Amie

 

thank you amie for your reply. i contacted Pringo for their rates. While price isn't really an issue, I'm not prepared to pay $10k+ for anything that isn't built from scratch. I have seen some offerings of $20k+ which is ridiculous. For that amount of money I can go to ceonex.com and have a kick-ass community developed with full ownership rights and proprietary code, well maybe a pinch more than $20k, but well worth it. So I'm hoping Pringo isn't ridiculously overpriced because they have exactly what i'm looking for.

also, the techcrunch link you posted is excellent! I haven't seen this yet, but I think i'll be spending quite a bit of time on it over the next few days of research. thanks!

as far as solutions under $1k, i'm leaning more towards Joovili than anything else right now. I contacted them with some questions regarding scalabilty and custom mod developments. We'll see what they say.......

 

pringo is amazing...

I hadnt heard of Joovili but it does look good.

I really think under $5K if reasonable but some of these companies are targeting big corporate money and will charge what they think they can get.

 

i agree, going above $5k is a bit ridiculous. i'd like to stay around $1k to start, but i'll go up as high as $2k if the product is really great and has excellent reviews. pringo charges $15k to start. i dont mind paying that, but for risk purposes i'd rather wait and let the community's profit pay for its own upgrades later.

 

does anyone else have any experience with joovili or pringo? any suggestions? anything other than phpfox, phpizabi, handshakes, buddy zone, vbulletin mods, or dolphin. i've already crossed them all off my list for a variety of reasons. for legal reasons, i'd rather deal with a company US-based. but any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

I use joovili, and I like it, there's quite a few mods and some of the features are basic but if you are happy to code or pay a coder to do the real mods you need, go for it!

 

thanks jacklaidlaw. i think i will be going with Joovili, even though i've been waiting for a few days for them to answer my questions :S

 

You can start a free online community with forums, blogs, videos, photos, music, articles etc.... at www.thevillage.com. You can use all or some of the features. You can also make your community (or village as we like to call it) private or public and either free or you can do a fee based site. It's customizable as well so you can brand it anyway you want to.

It's not a downloadable script, but it is free if you let us keep ads on the site. We will even to a revenue share for the ad money generated if your community gets good traffic. We're still polishing the product and our website but encourage you to start a free community and try it out before shelling out money somewhere else. Feel free to ask questions.

Sample communities:

www.riptube.com
www.breezinthru.com (no content on there yet)
nyrangers.thevillage.com

 

thanks teamdesign, looks interesting, but i prefer scripts that are completely open source and hosted on my own servers so that i can retain complete control of the code, member data, and ad revenue.

 

bumPage...

 

xill2678, thanks for this topic. Like you I'm looking around since months for a decent software, but nothing jet. I tried Izabi, but it was a terrible script.
For the moment I'm looking on Joovili and Elgg.
Jovili looks nice, but I can't find some templates to choose from. Have contacted with Joovili team and seems that they dont have more than 3 templates and this is a bit problematic for me.

 

Joovili needs ioncube, so you do not get the source code and there are very few options for templates.

 

Well I'm sort of in the same boat though money is an issue for me.

I've been reading various forums and sites/blogs looking for the right script for a SN. I don't understand why so many of these programs just suck and are all geared towards dating/hooking up.

I hope that the people that create these scripts work on making some that are actually for people to socialize and not just try to copy the features of some of the popular sites out there.

 

Thanks for the great thread, lots of valuable info about the products in this market!

everyone is looking for the "one".

I cant figure out which one is better and nothing seems to be like facebook...

facebook has so many options that none of the above has.


right now, I think handshake is the most relabel. I did read a review from someone that has over 50k users but didn't see the site.

If you find anything, please post it here so we can all enjoy it.

 

Well, I can tell you one thing. I'm currently using SocialEngine and it's the best I've seen. The only issue is that it lacks a few features like: Chat, Forum, Events, and Birthday Reminder to name a few. The script itself is solid and give you the freedom you need to grow. The code is not encrypted and customization isn't that hard if you know php. I've experimented with it and added a few functionalities to it, as well as redesigned the template. I'm not even a php programmer. They are schedule to release the 2.0 version in December and it will includes the features mentioned above and some more, minus the chatroom. So, it's the best I've seen and I've tried them all with a demo community of 5000 users. None survived like SocialEngine has. So, that's 2 thumbs up from me.

My 2 cents. Hope it helps.

 

Same boat here.

I looked at Joovili and Social Engine, both look pretty good.

I'm not doing this to make a ton of money, or to get a million people signed up. I'm doing this to get a group of alumni of a team I'm involved with together. Looking at around 500 or so now, and adding 10 or so a year, so a small group.

I really like the "tagging" feature facebook uses in their photos. Do either of these have that feature? I couldn't quite figure it out.

Thanks!

 

Pringo i found to work wonders not to mention if your talking about high-demand you really want a package that has been tried and tested to handle load, Running small websites and running high-demand is completely differnt and has harsh effects on code. Also at looking at your budget maybe you could try hiring a developer group to do the work for you? Using ELance or GAF to customise and refine something for yourself.

I have used and setup PHPFox, MYSpaceGold and acouple smaller social networking scripts and i can honestly say Pringo does the job. PHPFox is still very feature lacking in comparison and if you have the money to splash around you cant go wrong with Pringo. Not to mention they actually support there product.

 

What does pringo and vibecapital cost? I see nothing of price on either of the sites? VibeCapital seems to have nothing there about what they do or their software.

 

Neither company publishes their costs...so I don't feel comfortable giving the info. But I will say it is well over $5000 and is dependent upon how much customization you require them to do.