[Imc-alternatives] transition towns social network

[Josef Davies-Coates]

Yep Ning is a good (although corporate) service.

Some very good ning sites include:
http://www.globalswadeshi.net/ <- my fav network atm
http://p2pfoundation.ning.com/ <- lots of great minds
http://openmoney.ning.com/ <- considering banking collapse, more
important than ever

Plone 3 technically has most the features of ning, but needs LOTS of
usability and design work...

http://www.goingon.com/ is a similar service to ning that runs on
drupal (although I've not actually tried it out).

Josef.


2008/10/22 Jonathan Lehman <jonathandlehman at gmail.com>:
> Hey Dave, thanks for your thoughts on closed-source corporate
> controlled projects.
>
> I totally agree that we need to be building and promoting our own
> open, free, transparent platforms.
>
> I am mostly just impressed with what Ning has done from a features
> standpoint, and I'm sure we can do similar things given time and
> energy.  Crabgrass, for example, will serve its purpose very well
> given more development time and community input.  In the meantime,
> I'll checkout Elgg.
>
> Your case in point: there are currently major stability problems with
> tribe.net ... it's always going down because the company is suffering
> from some internal issues.  As a result of the instability and
> centralization of control, people are looking to flee the network for
> other alternatives.  Problem is, most folks are jumping to other
> corporate social network providers.  Ugh.
>
> jonathan!
>
>
> On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 6:35 PM, Dave Fregon <dave at netaxxs.com.au> wrote:
>> On Tue, 2008-10-21 at 17:27 -0400, Jonathan Lehman wrote:
>>> So, I just joined the US transition towns social network, it's got
>>> tons of awesome features!  Like the ability to upload and tag media,
>>> creation of local events, blogs, creation of social clusters / groups,
>>> chat, discussion threads, messaging, rss feeds, addition of
>>> specialized third-party developed apps (I don't know if their platform
>>> is open or not), etc.
>>>
>>> Check it out here:
>>> http://transitionus.ning.com/
>>>
>>> Friend me if you join!
>>> http://transitionus.ning.com/profile/bikesnotbombs
>>>
>>> It's all based on the ning.com technology ... where anyone can create
>>> a social network.  I'm not sure what software they're using, but I'm
>>> imagining the alternatives site to function in a very similar way, yet
>>> with more diversity (maybe more like a network of networks).  I think
>>> that without a high level of social functionality we're not gonna see
>>> a lot of relevant content creation or information sharing going on.
>>>
>>> Ning seems very similar to Crabgrass in some ways, but it's much more
>>> developed and user friendly at this point.
>>>
>>> I really like transitionus.ning.com because it has the capability to
>>> deliver localized, relevant content to user's through a dashboard or
>>> main page.  However, the issue with this design is that it is
>>> targeting folks with only *one* type of content, whereas with the
>>> alternatives IMC we are talking about having numerous topical issues.
>>> So it would be cool if on the altIMC a user's main page could be
>>> custom tailored based on what types of information that want to
>>> receive, e.g. information on *one* specific topic, or an info mashup
>>> like videos, discussion threads, and blog posts about law & security
>>> *and* permaculture.  Or whatever.
>>>
>>> Anyway, not wanting to shift our conversation to more theoretical
>>> design blah blah blah.  I'm just excited about the capabilities of
>>> Ning and wanted to share.
>>
>> Yes Ning is great in features .. your right about looking at the
>> processes, as with any social networking service.
>>
>> But I have to mention ..the problem with Ning is it's a corporation,
>> just like facebook, where the commons have no ability to participate,
>> other than in producing profit. You can't control advertising for
>> instance, nor decisions on how things are run, nor where the monies
>> generated go.
>>
>> There are a number of efforts underway for similar services, but still
>> early days yet, check out http://elgg.org which I have mentioned
>> previously.
>>
>> I personally think we look for solutions where information that is
>> personal, and identifiable, is able to be hosted and protected on
>> services that have transparency in the collective approach to hosting,
>> and where the users data can be protected and IP's etc scrubbed (for
>> example on a secure encrypted partition on the server that can be
>> destroyed if needed, as we have on borg.axxs.org (thanks to 'boud'))
>>
>> from the Ning terms of service, which are basically like Youtubes :
>>
>> "You hereby grant Ning, during the course of your usage of the Ning
>> Platform, a nonexclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual,
>> irrevocable, sublicenseable and transferable right and license to (i)
>> use, reproduce, create derivative works of, distribute, publicly perform
>> and publicly display Your Content (a) for the sole purpose of operating
>> and making Your Content available on the Ning Platform and in all
>> current and future media in which the Ning Platform may now or hereafter
>> be distributed or transmitted"
>>
>> The license allows it to use your content pretty much for
>> whatever purpose it wants to in perpetuity. It is based on a 'closed
>> source' or proprietary software platform, and it's advertising revenue
>> goes only to its shareholders, not to the people who created the
>> content.
>>
>> For an 'alternatives' site, we should really be looking at alternatives
>> to corporate centralisation of the 'commons' for profit, and backing and
>> using solutions that are open source, even if they are not up to the
>> standard the closed source solutions are. Time and support fixes that
>> problem.
>>
>> Saying that, your talking about the features, and yes I agree with the
>> process of social networks to date, I think most can be found in Elgg,
>> tho it is young, and have a test site up of it atm (tho not open to
>> public as concerns over security with the 'young' platform)
>>
>> --
>> Dave Fregon
>>
>> NetAxxs Workers Collective
>> Ph:  +613 5721 7777
>> Mob: 0434 000 234
>> 25A Ely Street
>> Wangaratta 3677
>> Australia
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-- 
Josef Davies-Coates
07974 88 88 95
http://uniteddiversity.com
Together We Have Everything