Friday 22 February 2013

10 tips make SEO friendly websites

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A great website design is a must for any business but it is useless to have a great website if nobody ever visits it. Its like building a theme park and not advertising it. Websites with zero visitors are as good as theme parks with empty rides. One of the biggest questions you will face as a web designer is to get your clients website “on the first page of Google”. Its perplexing how every client you meet will say the same thing and will have the same misconceptions about SEO. All they ever want is their websites to be on the top of google and they wouldn’t even want to change their website which looks like it was built in the 90′s by a guy learning HTML.
I wrote about an infographic a few days back about how Google ranks your web pages, but SEO is also an important part. Here are 10 SEO tips, to make a great SEO friendly site without compromising on design or usability.
1. Content was always the king and still is:
seo content is king
When I think about web spiders, I envisage machines like the Sentinels from Matrix. These go around the internet looking for content to feed on. They eat text from your pages and jump to another page when they are done. If you are building a website that uses flash or a lot of images and hardly any text, then you have a tough shot to get on top of Google listings (unless you have loads of money to spend on keywords).If you are using images, or sprites (for javascript animation), make sure you use  CSS background image replacement technique.
If you are using Flash, then make sure you are aware of how to make Flash objects accessible and web-crawler-friendly. Search engines have a really tough time crawling a website that uses Flash.
website structure
Make sure the website is well structured and this structure is exposed to bots. If you wanted these sentinels, that patrol the sewers to pass through your tunnel everyday, you would make sure that your tunnels are well connected. Your website is the part of the sewer (internet) that these sentinels (bots) patrol. If your website structure is not well defined, they will not crawl the entire website, leading to bad SEO.To make sure that these bots see your website in a way that humans do, here are a few things you should pay attention to.
2. Meta data should be unique:
Every page on your website should have unique meta data. Meta data is made of meta tags viz. keywords, description, page titles, author etc:  Many web designers build a website and forget to change meta data on every page. You can use a good CMS or a framework like CodeIgniter to generate unique meta tags for each page. This shows how to generate dynamic data using CodeIgniter.
This is important because, crawlers keep meta information about page in their memory. If each page has meta information that defines data on that page, you have a greater chance of featuring higher in search engine ranking to related topics.
3. SEO friendly URL’s:
Your URL is like the name plate on your house. If your URL tells the crawler what to expect on the page, it already knows what the structure is. Compare a URL like rizwaniqbal.com?c=90 to rizwaniqbal.com/companies/easports. The latter tells the crawler that this is a companies page for easports. Now, if someone searches for easports, there is a  good chance they will find your page.
Always try to use URL’s that have keywords for the page rather than parameters. I achieve this by writing controllers on CodeIgniter with SEO friendly names. You can even do this using .htaccess.
4. Use heading tags properly:
heading tags

Make good use of heading tags in your web page content; they provide search engines with information on the structure of the HTML document, and they often place higher value on these tags relative to other text on the web page (except perhaps hyperlinks).
Use the <h1> tag for the main topic of the page. Make good use of <h2> through <h6> tags to indicate content hierarchy and to delineate blocks of similar content.
I don’t recommend using multiple <h1> tags on a single page so that your key topic is not diluted.
5. Make sure your site navigation is search engine friendly:
I have come across a lot of websites that have a flash menu. As discussed before, flash is not very search engine friendly. If you take my personal opinion, I would never use it. In fact, if I see a flash menu on a website, I don’t see it worthy of my attention and browse away.
Use Javascript. Use CSS. This is 2011. Don’t make flash menus please.
That is all about the structure of your website. Apart from that, here are a few more tricks that you can keep up your sleeve to improve a websites SEO.
6. Put Javascript/CSS outside the HTML:
This might sound rude to you, but do you like to pray before your meals? I HATE IT!! I like to get to the food as soon as I can. When you put javascript and CSS on your web page, you are making those hungry bots wait to get to the content. A lot of developers, out of sheer practice and lack of common sense put lines and lines of javascript in the header. As I said, your bots feed on content. Don’t make them wait. Put javascript tags at the bottom of your page and externalize as much as you can.
7. Use robots.txt
robots.txt preview
It is surprising how less robots.txt is used and talked about. Every website has its dark nook and corners that owners wouldn’t want to be exposed. I usually do a lot of testing on my website in a different directory. I don’t want these pages to be parsed. You should shield the pages that you don’t want using robots.txt. Its a nifty file that is very useful. Your admin pages, private directories and pages with a lot of script on it should not be scrolled by bots.
Unlike sentinels, web crawlers are very obedient.  You can tell them what is not food and they will not munch on the pages you disallow in robots.txt.
8. Use ALT attribute for images:
Most IDE’s that you use will show you a warning if you forget the alt attribute for images. This one is not required but is every bit useful if you want good seo.
Search engines will read alt attributes and may take them into consideration when determining the relevancy of the page to the keywords a searcher queries. It is probably also used in ranking image-based search engines like Google Images.
Outside of the SEO angle, image alt attributes help users who cannot see images.
9. Update regularly:
This ones a bummer. You need to feed crawlers new data every time they visit your website. Even if its pizza, you can’t eat the same thing everyday. Search engines love to see content of web pages changing from time to time as it indicates that the site is still alive and well.
With changing content comes greater crawling frequency by search engines as well. I have seen my blog suffer just because I don’t update a lot. But, to help that, I have widget on my home page that syncs with my other activities on the internet and posts a live feed on my blog everyday. This helps me keep my website alive for bots.
10. Follow W3C standards:
This one goes without speaking. You need to follow internet standards. Everyone loves well formed, clean code. Even search engines.
Continue reading →

25+ Photoshop Web Design Layout Tutorials

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25 Excellent Photoshop Web Design Layout Tutorials
Photoshop is a popular web design tool. With it, you can create web design mock-ups that can later on be converted to a functional HTML/CSS template.
This collection of tutorials features top-notch techniques on how to create web design layouts using Photoshop.

1. Clean Style Portfolio Layout

A step-by-step Photoshop web design layout tutorial using basic techniques.
Clean Style Portfolio Layout

2. Clean Blog Layout in Photoshop

Learn how to make a dark-themed blog design layout in this Photoshop tutorial.
Clean Blog Layout in Photoshop

3. Create a Portfolio Web Layout in Photoshop

Discover how to use patterns in website layouts through this Photoshop tutorial.
Create a Portfolio Web Layout in Photoshop

4. How to Make a Vibrant Portfolio Web Design in Photoshop

This Photoshop tutorial uses 960 Grid System for laying out the web page.
How to Make a Vibrant Portfolio Web Design in Photoshop

5. Create an Elegant Photography Web Layout in Photoshop

This simple tutorial shows you how to apply background textures in your web designs.
Create an Elegant Photography Web Layout in Photoshop

6. Photo Gallery Website Layout in Photoshop

Learn to make a dark-themed photo gallery via this excellent Photoshop tutorial.
Photo Gallery Website Layout in Photoshop

7. Create a Movie Video Streaming Website

In this Photoshop tutorial, you’ll use layer styles to create great web design elements.
Create a Movie Video Streaming Website

8. How to Build a Stylish Portfolio Web Design Concept

Learn techniques for creating elegant web designs in Photoshop through this tutorial.
How to Build a Stylish Portfolio Web Design Concept

9. Create a Modern Lab Theme Web Design in Photoshop

This tutorial will show you design techniques for making slick web layouts.
Create a Modern Lab Theme Web Design in Photoshop

10. Create an Extremely Simple Dark Web Design in Photoshop

In this tutorial, you’ll learn plenty of techniques such as how to make a web button.

11. How to Create a Sleek Grid Based Website Design

From paper to Photoshop, learn how to lay out a web design on a grid.
How to Create a Sleek Grid Based Website Design

12. How to Create a Vintage Photoshop Website Layout

Make a stylish vintage-themed design by reading this awesome Photoshop tutorial.
How to Create a Vintage Photoshop Website Layout

13. Create a Simple Clean Portfolio Layout in Photoshop

This Photoshop layout tutorial is perfect for portfolio sites as well as web app sites.
Create a Simple Clean Portfolio Layout in Photoshop

14. 3D Portfolio Dark Layout in Photoshop

You’ll use Photoshop guides, layer styles and more in this web design tutorial.
3D Portfolio Dark Layout in Photoshop

15. Design a Clean and Colorful Ecommerce Layout in Photoshop

This tutorial will walk you through the creation of an e-store product page design.
Design a Clean and Colorful Ecommerce Layout in Photoshop

16. Design an Innovative Portfolio Site Using Alternative UI/UX

This tutorial shows you the creation of a web page that has a unique user interface.
Design an Innovative Portfolio Site Using Alternative UI/UX

17. Design a Sleek Mobile App Website

Create a simple dark-themed web design layout using basic Photoshop techniques.
Design a Sleek Mobile App Website

18. Design a Warm, Cheerful Website Interface in Adobe Photoshop

This superb web layout tutorial has a PSD to HTML conversion follow-up.
Design a Warm, Cheerful Website Interface in Adobe Photoshop

19. Impressive Videographer Website Portfolio Layout in Photoshop

In this tutorial, you’ll use the Custom Shape Tool to make a background pattern.
Impressive Videographer Website Portfolio Layout in Photoshop

20. How to Create a WordPress Theme in Photoshop

Learn to make a simple blog layout using Photoshop.
How to Create a WordPress Theme in Photoshop

21. Design a Bold and Vibrant Portfolio

This web layout tutorial walks you through the creation of a colorful portfolio site.
Design a Bold and Vibrant Portfolio

22. Create an Elegant Patterned Web Design in Photoshop

Among the things you’ll learn in this tutorial is the creation of Photoshop patterns.
Create an Elegant Patterned Web Design in Photoshop

23. Design a Clean Corporate Website Layout

Learn how to incorporate stock photos in your website layout’s header in this tutorial.
Design a Clean Corporate Website Layout

24. How to Create a Colorful Business Web Layout

This Photoshop tutorial will demonstrate how to incorporate icons in your web designs.

25. Design a Textured "Coming Soon" Web Page in Photoshop

Learn to make a simple web design with beautiful textures in this Photoshop tutorial.
Design a Textured "Coming Soon" Web Page in Photoshop

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Continue reading →
Monday 18 February 2013

Best Social Networking Script

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www.SocialEngine.com
SocialEngine is a PHP-based social network platform that lets you create a social network on your website. Right out of the box, your social network will offer nearly all of the features found on today’s wildly popular social networks. Instead of hosting your social network on our servers, we give you complete control over your project by allowing you to download the source code and install it on your own server.
We don’t want you to create “turnkey” cookie-cutter social networks. We want your new social network to offer something unique. We call SocialEngine a “platform” because it instantly gives you a simple, unbranded network. This lets you get right to deploying your unique theme, social structure, or concept using our source code as a foundation.
What makes SocialEngine different?
SocialEngine is the only self-hosted social network platform that can truly give you the opportunity for explosive, viral growth. Other social network apps create social networks that look and work the same. SocialEngine’s simple design lets you highlight your unique theme. We’ve gone to great lengths to make customizations easier, with detailed comments placed throughout the completely unencrypted source code. SocialEngine also includes advanced social features not found in other apps, like subnetworks, multiple possible friendship structures, and very comprehensive privacy settings.
Features & Capabilities
Like most white-label social networking apps, SocialEngine is feature-rich. Unlike other products, however, SocialEngine is uniquely designed to support almost any social networking concept you might have. This means that you won’t end up with cookie-cutter results. Instead of throwing in as many end-user features as we could, we focused on building a stable, customizable platform upon which you can implement your own unique features and ideas. Of course, we’ve included all of the staples that end-users have come to expect: Blogs, albums, groups, messages, and everything else you see listed below. To avoid bombarding your users with an overkill of information, we’ve kept these as simple as possible and made them easy for you to modify (with fully commented code and HTML templates).


phpFoX

phpFox is a featured packed social networking solution. Our goal is to provide your community with features found on major social networking websites like Facebook and MySpace right out of the box. phpFox is built on a platform that gives you full control with your websites layout giving you the ability to easily create a unique look direct from the comfort of your Admin Control Panel.
Features
No Encryption!
You may view and edit the source code of the software as you please so you can build onto an already powerful product.
Active Community
Join phpFox today and you will join a very large active community that is there to help you. With over 43,888 members, 206,939 forum posts, 1,368 add-ons and 171 articles you will be able to gain a lot of knowledge about phpFox in no time.
Monetize
Monetizing a social network doesn’t have to be hard and we make sure you have the right tools to get things started from ad campaigns, user based ads, membership plans, sponsored items and ability to sell marketplace listings. Learn more
Mobile
The web has gone mobile and so have we. We have included a default mobile theme with our product, which will allow all mobile devices to easily browse your site without all that extra data saving your users time and money.
No “Powered By” Branding
Not a problem, if you want to remove the “Powered By” branding we offer a one-time fee on a branding removal for $49.
Homemade PHP Framework
We developed our core products PHP framework specifically for the needs of powering all the modules we include.
SEO Friendly
When viewing an item like a blog or photo it requires a unique identifier and we use SEO (Search Engine Optimizations) practices to keep content on top of search engine results giving your community a lot more hits.
Your Satisfaction is Guaranteed!
We are so convinced that you will love our easy-to-use product that we offer a 30 Day “no questions asked” Money Back Guarantee.
Facebook Connect
Facebook Connect has proven to be one of the must useful tools to introduce a social network and keep users in touch with your site while they are on Facebook as well as easily log into your community without having them register.

Chameleon

Chameleon is a powerful, secure, fast and stable PHP/MySQL online social network script with unlimited functionality, modification options and easy design/layout customization.

If you buy Chameleon TODAY, you get FREE: 1) YouTube Video
2) VOIP Phone
3) Voice Recording
4) Video Chat Later these features will go separately, so you will be able to buy them additionally.
Features
Friend Listing Module
If a member wants he may list his friends on his profile. This can be switched off at any time.
RSS Feeds Reader
A user can publish RSS news on his profile. He can just copy and paste the link, that is all. All languages are supported.
Profile Comments Module
If a member wants he can activate this module. His friends will leave comments for him or about his profile.
Profile Color Changer
Now changing the background color is easy. One can just use the palette tool.
MySpace+Flash Profile Editor FREE! (NEW!!!)
Members want to have a customized profile. This is how MySpace model works. But not all of them want to know anything about CSS or HTML. So let them just draw!
New Admin Panel
The admin panel has been rewritten from the scratch. We have had a lot a of letters asking to add things to the admin panel, that’s why we decided to rewrite it completely. Now you can do everything from the admin cp.
New Forum
The forum has also been rewritten from the scratch. Now it is almost a full copy of the IPB forum but optimized for use with community scripts.
New Shiny Templates
New templates have been added to almost every package. Now buying one script you literally buy several ones because the designs are as different as possible.
Easy Migration From Other Dating Scripts
Sometimes you need to try a new software to understand if it is better for your business. We have made this process very easy, you can migrate from other dating or community scripts with several clicks. Not only the users will be migrated, but also galery, blogs, mail, groups and events. Currently we support PHPFox and Boonex Dolphin migration.
Free Video Chat (NEW!!!)
You will not have to buy a video chat separately which is about $250 a month. Moreover, you will not have to buy a Flash Server hosting, which is about $100-$150 a month. You will not have to buy Adobe Media Server for your hosting, which costs $6000. You will just have a video chat on your dating site.
Dating Script Messaging
YouTube-like Video Sharing (NEW!!!)
You will be able to start a video-sharing community like YouTube on your site. The user will be able to upload all kinds of movies, they are converted in FLV files and played in an ordinary Flash player. You will not have to buy a Flash Media server or pay any monthly fee. Read More:Dating Software + YouTube?
MySpace and Friendster-like Friends Module
The users will be able to add each other to friends. Also they can invide friends using a form or Yahoo account or a simple CSV-file with email addresses.
MySpace and Friendster-like Groups Module
The users will be able to discuss the things that interest them in groups. The one who creates the group is automatically the group administrator, he is able to delete posts and so on.
Funny Flash Postcards Editor (NEW!!!)
Your users will be able send each other postcards. They also can add music. If you want to add new pics or backgrounds you can just upload them into the specific directory on the server.
and more…

vldPersonals

vldPersonals is the most trusted, powerful and automated online dating and social networking software solution. It enables you to create a fully functioning and captivating dating or social website with many of the advanced features found on other major sites. Starting your own dating website with vldPersonals is fast and easy.
The theme of your website is completely customizable, whether it’s a minor change or a completely new and different design. If growth and reliability are important concerns for your dating site, vldPersonals is the right choice for you.
* Customizable and brandable
Completely rebrandable online dating software that you can customize in absolutely any way.
* Dynamic profile fields
Create as many profile fields and groups as you need and organized them by type for more flexibility.
* Pictures, videos and music
Allow your users to upload all kinds of media content and share it with their friends and family.
* Private messages and chat
Your users can send each other private messages and chat live using built in instant messenger.
* Blogs, guestbooks and events
Keep your site fresh and dynamic by letting your users write blogs, sign guestbooks and create events.
* Security and spam protection
Our dating script comes with unique features that help you fight spammers more effectively than ever.
Why vldPersonals?
* Free Lifetime Support
* Free Updates for a Year
* Free Installation
* Free Hosting
* Instant Download
* Unencrypted Files
* Safe From Hackers
* Secure Ordering
Key features
* Advanced Profile Editor
* SEO Links and Tags
* Quick and Advanced Search
* Full PayPal Integration
* Flexible Extension System
* Social Networking Options
* Customizable Templates
* Multiple Language Support

DZOIC Handshakes Professional

If you’ve ever wanted to start your own profitable social networking website, look no further. DZOIC Handshakes is your complete solution. With all the social networking sites like myspace, facebook, friendster, hoverspot, and many others, DZOIC has taken the best of all of them and put them into one complete package called Handshakes Professional. With hundreds of features, easy installation, lifetime support, theme driven, and an easy to use interface, your search is over. DZOIC Handshakes Professional is what you have been looking for!
Social networking software at its best! If you dream to start your own profitable social networking website like myspace, facebook, friendster, hoverspot, and others, look no further. DZOIC Handshakes is your complete solution!
Admin Console
Handshakes Professional script comes with a very powerful admin console which gives you total control over every single area of the site.
Install Guide
No need to be a professional server administrator to install Handshakes, since it includes a one-step installation guide. Just provide some basic installation details and start using the software in a minute.
Video Grabber Plugin [NEW!]
Allows your Handshakes users easily import / embed videos from YouTube by entering the video URL.
NOTE: this is a separate plugin and is not included into the base Handshakes script.
Please click here to read more.
Load Balance Plugin [NEW!]
Allows you to use multiple servers for video convertion and storage. Includes script installation, single server setup and plugin integration.
NOTE: this is a separate plugin and is not included into the base Handshakes script.
Please click here to read more.
Tags [NEW!]
* tag clouds appear on all pages for blogs, music and video modules
* modules settings:
- enable/disable module
- minimum and maximum amount of tags to show
- minimum string length of a tag
- minimum and maximum font sizes
- cache lifetime
Social Bookmarking [NEW!]
* social bookmarking buttons appear on blogs, music and video view pages
* admin can enabled/disable module and setup engines
* default engines:
- Favorites (browser favorites)
- Del.icio.us
- Digg
- Furl
- Magnolia
- StumbleUpon
- Google
- Yahoo
- Technorati
- BlinkList
Recording
* members can send voice or video messages to each other
* members can post audio or video testimonials for other members
* audio/video blogging
* audio/video comments for blog posts, music entries and video uploads
* admin is able to setup a limit of disk space allocated for each user’s multimedia content
Video Chat
* members can invite each other to a video chat
* ability to ignore user
* admin is able to setup daily user usage time for video chat
Music
* members can upload music media files (sound or video)
* members can input external embed tags (such as YouTube, Yahoo! Videos)
* other members can listen/view medias, vote for them and leave comments
* ability to search music by artist or title name
* ability to browse music files
* unique Handshakes MP3 player is used to play MP3 files (view screenshot)
Videos
* members can upload their fun/home videos and put them to various categories
* members can input external embed tags (such as YouTube, Yahoo! Videos)
* other members can view videos, vote for them and leave comments
* ability to search for video files
* ability to browse videos by categories
* all videos are converted into the FLV format during upload
* screenshots are created on the fly
* unique Handshakes FLV player is used to play video files (view screenshot)
Flash Chat and Instant Messenger
* members can chat in public rooms or in club-private rooms
* members can send each other instant messages
* IM supports smileys
* members can add their friends to IM contacts lists and get instant notifications if any of them comes online
Profiles
* full control over profile questions and sections
* members can choose a preset template for their profile or create their own using HTML and CSS tags, just like they do it on myspace.com
* members can easily add sound or video to their profile, which will be automatically embedded into their profile page
* profile page includes a brief list of member’s recent blogs, classifieds, events, clubs and a preview of member’s photo album
* profiles can be bookmarked

Hot or Not

* members can upload their photos and allow other members to vote for them and leave comments
* top lists: any gender, male and female separate top lists
Blogs
* members are not limited to just one blog and can start a blog for each topic they want to share their throughts for
* other members can post comments for each blog post
* ability to attach images to the post
* ability to personalize blog by choosing a template, modify colors, use custom CSS tags
* blogs can be bookmarked
Classifieds
* members can post their classified ads and put them in a particular category/subcategory
* other members can send replies for classified ads
* ability to upload an image for the ad
* ability to personalize classified ad by choosing a template, modify colors, use custom CSS tags
* classifieds can be bookmarked
Events
* members can announce date/time/location based events
* other members can attend events and see who’s already in an attendees list
* ability to personalize event by choosing a template, modify colors, use custom CSS tags
* events can be bookmarked
Clubs
* members can create clubs with different access level: public (anyone can join), moderated (moderator approves/declines join requests from other members), private (invitation only)
* each club includes club classifieds, club events, club discussion board, club photos
* moderator of the club has an ability to manage members (delete existing members or invite new ones)
* ability to personalize club by choosing a template, modify colors, use custom CSS tags
* clubs can be bookmarked
eCards
* members can send eCards to other members of your site or to their “external” friends
* ability to send eCards immediately or on date
* senders get notifications when their eCard has been picked up by each recipient
* ability to personalize eCard by choosing a template, modify colors, use custom CSS tags
* eCards are being stored in “My Sent eCards” and “My Received eCards” special folders
GetPaid
* create multiple membership packages
* setup prices and payment periods for each package
* setup per-page or per-module access levels for each package
* offer members the ability to pay for making their blogs, classifieds, events or clubs to appear in “Featured” lists
* create advertisement campaigns
* upload banners or use external ad tags (such as Google AdSence or Overture)
* setup targeting for campaign ads: per-page targeting, geo targeting, categories targeting
* track sales history
* ability to approve pending orders manually
Forum
* admin can create and manage forums
* members can post topics (HTML tags support, smileys)
* members can post replies to other topics
Polls
* users can create their own polls with a question and a number of answers
* other members can vote for their preferred answers and see statistics on how others have voted
* admin can approve / disapprove every new poll
Continue reading →
Sunday 17 February 2013

29 Best Social Networking Platforms to Start your own Service

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socialnetworkplatform
Social networking websites have been around since the mid-90′s, but in recent years, social networking has exploded across the web. The Web 2.0 initiative has made modern social networking sites increasingly popular and easier to use than the initial wave of sites that launched in the 90′s.  It’s super important these days to have a presence on social media sites. Did you know that Facebook in 2009 had more than 300 million users, and roughly half of these logged in every day? I can also tell you that twitter attracted more than 22 million unique visitors every month and YouTube had more than 100 million users in the US alone. Do you think these numbers will grow in 2010? There may still be niches waiting for someone to launch a dedicated service – in theory this could be you. In fact it is not that hard any more as you will see in this article.

A social networking service focuses on building and reflecting of social networks or social relations among people, e.g., who share interests and/or activities. A social network service essentially consists of a representation of each user, his/her social links, and a variety of additional services. Most social network services are web based and provide means for users to interact over the internet, share ideas, discuss shared concerns etc. The value can be huge for the involved individuals which of course is why so many people have adopted social networking.
Lets take a look at how easy it has become to create a new social networking service. As the area have matured we have seen fully functional platforms show up to make it a no-brainer to get started. In this article you will find 25 excellent platforms to pick from.

1. SocialEngine


SocialEngine is community software that you install on your own web server, giving you 100% ownership of your social network’s user data and content. You can use SocialEngine to create various kinds of communities with different frameworks, like Twitter-style followers or Facebook-style friendships. SocialEngine also has an active development community with hundreds of addons, templates, and themes. The software also includes a drag-and-drop CMS for easily customizing your community’s layout.

2. SourceForge


Sorceforge is the world’s largest opensource software development web site. We provide free services that help people build cool stuff and share it with a global audience.

3. Ning


Ning is the leading online platform for the world’s organizers, activists and influencers to create their own social network. Design a custom social experience in under 30 seconds giving you the power to mobilize, organize and inspire.

4. Elgg


Elgg.com is where you can get a network up and running in minutes. With support from the Elgg team and plenty of customization options, you can make it exactly how you want it

5. Xoops with Yogurt Extension


XOOPS is a web application platform written in PHP for the MySQL database. Its object orientation makes it an ideal tool for developing small or large community websites, intra company and corporate portals, weblogs and much more.

6. BuddyPress


BuddyPress is completely free and open source. Unlike hosted services, BuddyPress allows you to stay in control of your site and create a totally customized, unique experience

7. KicKapps


KickApps provides solutions that enable the creation and management of next generation web experiences. These solutions are social, interactive, dynamic, distributed, and data-informed. KickApps solutions consist of a suite of hosted media applications and services that are used by some of the world’s largest websites and brands to grow & engage their online audiences and foster deeper relationships with customers.

8. Mahara


Mahara is an open source e-portfolio system with a flexible display framework. Mahara, meaning ‘think’ or ‘thought’ in Te Reo M?ori, is user centred environment with a permissions framework that enables different views of an e-portfolio to be easily managed. Mahara also features a weblog, resume builder and social networking system, connecting users and creating online learner communities.

9. Insoshi


It’s a place to keep tabs on your favorite developers and projects, easily contribute fixes and new features, and visualize what’s going on inside your codebase!

10. Lovd By Less


Built with Ruby on Rails, Lovd is a social networking solution that has everything you need to build your community

11. Anahita Social Engine


Anahita Social Engine  is an open source platform, framework, and design methodology for building all kinds of social networking applications and services using an organic Nodes-Graphs-Stories architecture. Anahita is available under the Gpl2 License

12. MixxT


The mixxt GmbH is a provider of innovative Social Network and Online Community solutions and operator of the European Community platform mixxt. mixxt lets everyone create an individual Community and helps making communication and organization easier and more efficient. Community hosts can directly get in contact with their customers or target group and present themselves as interactive and innovative, without renouncing privacy, structure or an own design

13. AroundMe


Using AROUNDMe collaboration server you can create multiple collaborative group, webspace, community or social networking websites. Each group can create a multiple page collaborative web site. They get social tools such as a guestbook (a wall), a group blog, a forum and a wiki which they can drop into web pages. Each group is fully customisable using xHTML, CSS, Javascript and PHP. Groups can be private or public.

14. JomSocial


Customize profile fields.
Create groups. Invite friends.
Send private messages. Comment on walls.
Share photos. Follow updates via activity stream.
Integrate 3rd party components with our robust API.

15. Yacs


Simple, open source  social network.

16. Flock

Flock is a browser. The people at Flock are committed to building a browser unlike anything you’ve ever experienced before – because they start by focusing on user needs. They take pride in solving for common behaviors on the Web that seem clunky today, and will seem ridiculous tomorrow.

17. GroupSite

Formerly CollectiveX, Groupsite.com is a platform that empowers the creation of social websites called Groupsites. Groupsites are collaboration communities that enable groups to communicate, share and network to make things happen. They do this by combining the most useful (but not all) features of online groups and listservs (like Yahoo! Groups), collaboration software (like Sharepoint) and Social Networks (like Facebook and Linkedin).

18. Context Optional

Social marketing software and services for global brands and advertising agencies.

19. Going On


GoingOn provides a fast and cost effective way to build vibrant online communities. Leveraging the best of today’s social web, GoingOn Community Platform enables academic institutions to deliver new, more engaging models of knowledge management and social collaboration across their campuses, and to their broad network of constituents. The results include increased student engagement, improved faculty product-ivity, enhanced online learning and broader marketing outreach.

20. Demand Media


21. Pligg

Pligg is an open source CMS (Content Management System) that you can download and use for free. Pligg CMS provides social networking software that encourages visitors to register on your website so that they can submit content and connect with other users. Our software creates websites where stories are created and voted on by members, not website editors. Use Pligg content management system to start your own social networking community in minutes.

22. HayStack

Cerado is the provider of the Haystack social networking platform. Cerado Ventana connects multiple social networks, web sites, and mobile web services. It is a web-based service that connects people, information and commerce via an interface that is optimized for the iPhone.
23. People Aggregator
Broadband Mechanics’ PeopleAggregator is an experiment in building social networks around open standards so that people can easily move between networks, whether or not those networks are run by the same owners or contain the same features. If the social networking world were run the way Broadband Mechanics’ CEO Marc Canter envisions, Facebook users would easily be able to carry their identity (including all the information they owned on Facebook) over to MySpace, Orkut, and Friendster. Then any changes to their identities on those networks could be brought back over to Facebook.
24. One Site
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ONEsite, a subsidiary of the hosting company Catalog.com, provides a hybrid social networking / CMS platform. The ONEsite Platform includes custom profiles, user generated content (blogs, photos, videos, forums), activity streams, groups, calendars and a points and rewards system.
ONEsite includes hosted Software as a Service components as well as APIs and Widgets that can be integrated into external systems.
ONEsite provides in-house professional services for the implementation and integration of its platforms. The company also includes an in-house technical support and moderation group

25. Kootali


Kootali is a customized and fully featured social networking script, similar to large sites like facebook, that lets you create a standalone social community site for allowing users to communicate and connect. It could be romantic, personal, professional or anything else. It gives your users the perfect environment to socialize and network with their online pals.
With the awesome features of Kootali, users can easily form a closed network under any category like work place, school, college and many more. Your users can network on the site to make, develop, and keep in touch with friends who focus on politics, religion, pets, sports and so forth.
Kootali allows your users to take an active role in building and contributing to the site content. Members can take part in discussions on hot topics, share articles, photos, and videos. Sharing snapshots and videos is a much better way to express individualism and uniqueness.
26. Chameleon

Try to look for your friends on the Earth Map, chat in the Video Chat. You will see that it is a different system, different from all the rest clone scripts out there, and if you do not want to make clone sites Chameleon is for you!

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