While surfing around the different PHP developer forums and blogs I have seen the question of finding a MySpace.com clone come up more and more. It's no secret, the building of specialized social groups based on the MySpace look and architecture is going to be the next hot trend.

Commercial profits

Until now there was no open source CMS software to help in building such a website. Seeing that the trend is coming a long list of commercial applications have hit the market. Costing anything from $40 to $400 these applications are becoming popular with the money making webmasters. This is all good. The software developers make money and so do those that use the software. The problem arises when those using the software want to make changes to the core code to be more suitable to their business model. This is when the costs and support may stop many startups or hinder those that just want to try social networking as an alternative to building a forum.

Open source to the rescue

Checkout the demo of AROUNDme and you will see that it is a fresh looking and powerful solution right out of the box. This is a much better alternative to modifying a CMS like Drupal or Joomla.

Social networking

The AROUNDme platform encourages participation in activities which introduces a person to like minded people. That person will form friendships with those other people thus building a social network around themselves. Their increased social network will introduce them to new activities. The strength of the network ties is high because many shared interests exist within that persons social sphere. The person will gain knowledge and we wish to encourage that person to share that knowledge by providing an open and inclusive environment. In sharing that knowledge their reputation grows within their social sphere. This "discover-learn-attend-share-discover" loop constantly builds a stronger wider social network allowing the person to leverage it to live as they wish to.

AROUNDMe supports PHP version 4.x or 5.x. AROUNDMe supports MySQL, PostgreSQL, Interbase, Firebird, Informix, Oracle, MS SQL 7, Foxpro, Access, ADO, Sybase, FrontBase, DB2, SAP DB, SQLite and generic ODBC database software. It also has the following list of features.

• Multilingual
  AROUNDMe software is multilingual both in interface and content. A registered person can choose which languages they can read. Content is presented to them in those languages only.
• Customizable
  AROUNDMe uses templates and CSS meaning that the interface is full customizable for anyone with a basic understanding of xhtml and css.
• Social networking
  Your network is your most vital communications asset. AROUNDMe gives you a platform from which to build an active social network around you.
• Interest groups
  Inside AROUNDMe you can create interest groups. Each interest group has a membership listing and discussions area.
• Blogs
  Each registered person has a blog where they can publish news and articles.
• Wiki
  AROUNDMe has an in-built wiki for you to store documents and guides.
• Activities
  Any registered person can create activities around their interests.

Ongoing development

AROUNDme is on the fast track to version 0.7. This is the advantage that open source has in a situation like this. Ongoing open development means improvements come fast. In the last 5 months AROUNDme has improved by leaps and bounds. They have also added another dedicated developer to the project.

Development Community?

It is unfortunate that AROUNDme uses it own software as a base for building a development community. Social networking software of this sort is unsuitable for this task. It is confusing and makes it hard to find information. Tom Calthrop the founder of AROUNDme should really think about hooking up with PunBB as a sister project and use PunBB forum rather than AROUNDme. Perhaps a re-organization of the website architecture would help. In the mean time the links shown in this article should help greatly.

An established non-profit organisation

Sometimes it is hard to know if you should donate to a project without knowing about those that are running it. The people behind AROUNDme are Barnraiser a Swedish registered non-profit organisation (number: 802415-6427). An organisation dedicated to giving people the tools they need to share knowledge and advance society through social networking software. So if using this software saves you a few bucks you may want to consider sharing.

Happy Publishing!

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