Community Builder beyond social sites

Community Builder beyond social sites
@ J and Beyond

A short story …
30/5/2010
© Joomlapolis - 2010
2

Our profiles:
Beat B.
Nick A.
‘nant’ on forums
Athens, Greece
MS EE, MS CS
Telecom / CIO
“Good engineers don’t need tools, bad ones also have no use for them”
‘beat’ on forums
Lake Geneva, Switzerland
MS EE/CS, PhD CS
Internet security / web-apps
“Make it as simple as possible, but no less”
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Presentation Agenda
Social networks
Community Builder™
Extending CB and CBSubs™
Strategy – vision – future
Hosting and managing communities
Summary
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Social network … what is it?
People interacting
Two ‘types’ of people interactions
Friends type (more personal)
Community type (more public)
Searching for candidates
Common interests
Invitations (public/open and private/direct)
Interactions
Establishing contact
Communicating (internal, external)
Sharing (internal, external)
A social network is a social structure made of individuals (or organizations) called "nodes," which are tied (connected) by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as friendship, kinship, common interest, financial exchange, dislike, sexual relationships, or relationships of beliefs, knowledge or prestige.
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Examples of social networks on the web
www.facebook.com(CB on facebook: www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=7809086610 )
www.linkedin.com(CB on linkedin: www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=72919&trk=hb_side_g )
www.myspace.com
www.ning.com
Joomla enables you to have your social network on your site
A good Joomla tutorial about building online communities
www.compassdesigns.net/joomla-tutorials/building-online-communities-with-joomla
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Relationships are mutual trust and knowing each other
User management
Registration, approval, workflow, subscriptions, etc..
Connect users
Adding "friends" network exploration relational, etc..
Profiles
Images, information, fact sheets, applications, etc.
Search
Lists, Advanced Research, by shared interests, location, etc..
Communication
Private messaging, email, forums, blogs, reviews, etc..
Groups
Management, moderation, privileges, etc..
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Social network … why?
Why should I let my users interact on MY site?
Will it help my site?
How to implement?
Is this here to last?
Concerns?
Integrate?
How to follow?
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Social network … when to use?
The member brings to your site:
Life
credibility
openness
enthusiasm
ideas and valuable feedback
their friends, their recommendations
Bring people closer to you
collective intelligence (of which you are part of!)
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Social network … how?
External controlling interest (there anyway):
Facebook, Linked-in, MySpace, Twitter, Digg, Buzz, ...
Outside with limited control and data relocated:
Ning, Google Groups, Wave
Internal to your site:
Without Joomla: Elgg, ...
With Joomla:
Community Builder (CB)
“CBE“
Jomsocial
Jomunity (tuiyo)
Anahita
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People perspective
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Facts and key points
Leading social networking solution for Joomla and Mambo
Most popular extension on JED
2+ million installations from 300.000+ registered members
180+ CB extensions
Stable (first beta release Aug. 2004 ~ Mambo era)
Secure (only 2 vulnerabilities reported in its 6 year history – last one was 2 years ago)
Robust and tuned for performance (5000 simultaneous users on one server)
Free and open-source GPL license
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Community
300.000+ registered Joomlapolitans
Supporters “Documentation subscribers” (35 € / year)
Many third party developers (hundreds of extensions)
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Work-Groups
CB Team
3 dedicatedprofessionals full-time(Beat, Nick, Kyle)
A dozen volunteershalf-dozen contractors
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Technical
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Core key social networking features:
Registration and approval workflows (4)
Membership data gathering
Profiles organized in fields (many types) and tabs
Member interactions called “connections”. 16 workflows 1-6 degrees.
Community moderation tools (“reporting”, “banning”, “blocking”, image moderation)
Users listing and searching
Additional core functions integrate with the underlying CMS and key extensions (forum, PMS, newsletter[L], blog[L])
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Community Builder™ features
Registration/approval (4)
Profiles (fields and tabs)
ACL for tabs
Profile templates
Fields (12 types)
Connections (16 wf, 1-6 d)
Moderation tools
User lists and searching
CMS integration (articles)
Key extensions integration(forum, PMS, ...)
GroupJive
Captcha
Privacy
ProfileBook (G+B+W)
ProfileGallery (Quotas)
Ajax File field
Rating field
Ajax text field
Autowelcome
Latest visitors
Facebook / Twitter connect
Content module
Admin module
Over 180 listings on JED
Almost every Joomla extension has CB integration features
Published API enables third party development of clean extensions
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New CB API doc!

Community Builder™ architecture
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CB 1.2 API examples
Get unique User handle:
$cbUser = CBuser::getInstance( (int) $user_id );
Getuser’s profile data (raw):
$user = $cbUser->getUserData();
Get user’s profile field, rendered in html for display:
$html = $cbUser->getField( 'avatar' );
Getuser’s profile field, rendered as exportable data:
$data = $cbUser->getField( 'avatar’, null, ‘csv’ );
Get a given tab of the user profile:
$html = $cbUser->getTab( (int) $tab_id );
Get all tabsrendered of a given position on the user profile:
$html = $cbUser->getPosition( 'center' );
Get all positions rendered, indexed:
$userViewTabs= $cbUser->getProfileView();
Renderwhole profile using CB template:
$html = HTML_comprofiler::_cbTemplateRender( $cbTemplate, $user, 'Profile', 'drawProfile', array( &$user, &$userViewTabs ), $output );
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Strategy perspective
CB is GPL and FREE
Funded by Documentation subscriptions and seek other financial support to keep CB FREE and GPL.
High quality and secure releases
Support other GPL projects when possible(Joomla, Simpleboard, Joomlaboard, Fireboard, Kunena, UddeIM, Yanc, GroupJive, …)
Be “Community” aware (still support our Mambo users)(after all this is a “community builder” project)
Sound framework instead of quick add-ins (+/-)
Provide the best forum support possible with available resources
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Community Builder™ historic view
Mambo era
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Community Builder™ historic view
Joomla era
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Extending CB and CBSubs™
The CB Team has been providing its own CB extensions:
CB Team add-ons (Profilebook, ProfileGallery, Captcha, Privacy, AutoWelcome, Last Visitors, Facebook Connect, Twitter Connect, Rating field, Ajax text field, Ajax, File field, etc.)
GroupJive – a group management extension now supported by CB Team. GroupJive 1.8 stable makes extensive use of CB API.
CBSubs™ - the most powerful Membership Subscriptions Solution for Joomla.
Templates – the 2 fastest packages for Joomla with CB templates included (MyCommunity and Coolness)
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CB Team plug-ins
CB has API and can be extended cleanly and future proof with plug-ins:
Profilebook (guesbook, blog, wall for profiles)
Profilegallery (simple image/file gallery for profiles with quota)
Privacy (apply privacy to any field or tab – even on 3PD tabs)
Captcha (apply challenge to CB forms – can be used elsewere)
Ajax text field plugin (adds a new fieldtype for frontend edits)
Ajax file field plugin (fieldtype for file field in profile)
Rating field plugin
Autowelcome
Authentication plugins (Facebook, Twitter, more to come …)
Many more in poc phase – need to find way to share earlier …
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CB Team plug-ins: ProfileBook
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CB Team plug-ins: ProfileGallery
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CB Team plug-ins: Privacy
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CB Team plug-ins: Rating field
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CB Team plug-ins: Facebook/Twitter
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CB Team plug-ins: Visitors,Captcha,AW
Latest visitors
Captcha
AutoWelcome
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CB Team plug-ins: Ajax text fields
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CB Team plug-ins: Ajax file field
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CB Team plug-ins: Admin module
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Templates
Templates: MyCommunity and Coolness
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MyCommunity template
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Coolness template
Joomla template
CB template
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CBSubs™ membership subscription solution
CBSubs™ is a “special” plugin created for “our need” and commercialized to support FREE CB
Turn your Joomla website into a subscriptions based service
that protects any Joomla content element:article, category, section, component, module, …
based on “subscription plans”.
Has built-in access control mechanism
Clean, robust, no hacking solution
CBSubs™ has its own API and can have its own “plug-ins”
CBSubs™ 1.1 will have a payment gateway API and 1.2 will further open API for other integrations.
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CBSubs™: Architecture
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CBSubs™: Payment center
Payment center shows nice overview of last 7 day activity:
Number of transactions, Completed payments, New Registrations, Upgrades, Renewals
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Joomlapolis - 2010
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CBSubs™: Main Panel
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CBSubs™: Architecture
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CBSubs™: Protection (ACL)
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Article
Module
Component
URL-parts

Strategy – Vision – Future
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Joomlapolis new website
New design, better organization, easier navigation
Want a sneak preview?
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Incubator Initiative
Goal: to push CB Team ‘poc’ ideas and work to users and inspire common working think-tank process.
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CB Incubator Initiative
What need / goal?
The CB Team has many “proof-of-concept” implementations that have not been released
We would like to share this work with community members in order to inspire
and operate in a “think-tank” type of environment.
Who and how?
“Incubator” forge project area that will contain its own forums for discussions and idea sharing.
Can other developers also participate?
The longer term goal is to find a mechanism to allow others to participate and share their project “p-o-c” builds.
Currently we have 12 “p-o-c” projects to share!
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Community Builder 2.0
New look and feel
New MVC template system
New built-in functionality by CB Team
To be released this year!
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Community Builder 2.0
Key concepts
Extensive use of the CB API power (demonstrated and fine-tuned in CBSubs™ product)
More field types, more built-in plug-ins
New look – new MVC templating system
Ajax frontend
Activity plugin and extended ACL
Get involved!
Community designers will be able to propose what the new CB 2.0 profile will look like!
Use case discussions will be opened to community to make sure that included functionality can support as many use cases as possible out of the box.
Will be released this year.
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CB 1.2.x for Joomla 1.6
We are ready, is Joomla?
POC work already done!
Demo anyone?
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CBSubs™ 1.1
In workgroup testing*
Has Gateway API
2checkout support included
Fully translatable
Partner developer program
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CBSubs™ 1.1 in testing
Key features
Support of Authorize.net new silent calls for auto-recurring payments
Can support compatible payment gateways
2Checkout payment gateway support included
Backend now fully translatable via language plug-in
Bug fixes of course
In CBSubs™ workgroup for testing*, to be released in June.
CBSubs™ 1.2 will have:
Open API for other integrations (plug-ins, products)
Coupons
Global taxes and VAT inside CBSubs™
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GroupJive 2.0
100% CB API usage
Installed as CB plugin
In workgroup testing (b7)
RC to be released in June
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GroupJive 2.0
Key features
GroupJive 2.0 is now a CB plugin
Categories – moderators
Groups – moderators
Open, private, by invitation
Group bulletin board
Integration with forum
Fully translatable (backend and frontend)
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GroupJive 2.0
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GroupJive 2.0
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CB Connect (incubator)
Google friends connect
Gadgets as fields!
Facebookopengraph
Facebook apps as fields!
Opensocial API
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CB Connect (incubator project)
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CB Connect: Friends Connect Comment
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Google Comment Gadget
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CB Connect: FacebookLiveStream
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Hosting and managing communities
Technical issues
Initially Mambojoe.com and Joomlapolis.com were hosted on shared environments. As volumes increased, problems did also. So we decided to start using dedicated environments and we have now created a Joomlapolis Hosting service for our community members.
Human nature related issues
We have been managing a very large community for a long period and have learned a lot about day-to-day issues. There is a fine line that separates self-moderation and external control. We would like to share this concept with you.
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Hosting communities
JP Hosting Service: We have developed a professional hosting service with the following characteristics:
Server clustered and optimized for CB / Joomla / CBSubs
Highly Secure
Very high availability, clustering, fail-safe, incl. RAID Network
Intercontinental data-centres
Automated Network Management & Off-site backups
Very high performance clusters:
2.4 Gbit / s LAN
1000 Gb Internet
8 terabytes disks
32 Gb RAM
❸
❶
❹
❷
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Managing Communities
Tips and tricks for the "perfect Community Builder”:
Content, products and quality services
Honesty
Fairness
Modesty
Respect and help others
Admit mistakes and limitations
Thank, reward, empower, build
Do not delete / censor unless behavior rules transgressed
You do not own, but are simply a member
Finding the right business model takes time
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Summary
The Community Builder project has the strategy, the tools, the infrastructure, the track record and the community to keep CB at the cutting edge of social networking frameworks.
Thank you ….
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Community Builder beyond social sites

by CB Team @ Joomlapolis on Jun 03, 2010

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Community Builder beyond social sites — Presentation Transcript