JomSocial vs. CB vs. Joomunity vs. Others

[krazykat]

I'd like to hear everyone's take on these social networking extensions for Joomla. Pros and cons.

[joodriver]

hello Krazykat


great to see your thread. I am happy to hear from you. As i am the bloody newby i have not the wise words and deep insights not the good experience that do seniors have. But i am willing to take part in this viral discussione

I'd like to hear everyone's take on these social networking extensions for Joomla. Pros and cons.

I am glad that someone is undertaking the task of integrating very great features. I have looked at two promising Social Applications that is Jomsocial and Joomunity. Joomunity is free and offers excellent support for everything I need. Jomsocial costs below $100USD and is also an excellent choice I think.

But as a believer of the open source-ideas i would prefer Joomunity. The dev is triying to Build Communities: he says:

Joomunity helps you build dynamic and vibrant community sites on the worlds most successful content management system – Joomla. With lots of inspiration from popular networks like Facebook, MySpace, Netlog and Beboo, joomunity compiles a set of useful applications to enable effective collaboration amongst joomla site users.

http://www.joomunity.org/
http://forum.yooonity.org/
http://my.joomunity.org

well - as i am the newby i try to find out if i schould follow the CB-path or should go the joomunity-way. Guess that the second is the best way...

any ideas - please take part in this great and fruitful discussion..

joodriver.

[deleted user]

I'd suggest looking at Drupal or a collaborative, social media/publishing platform that was specifically designed for that purpose, like Elgg, which has an extensible and replaceable ACL. (Imagine that, Joomlaphiles!) Elgg was a bit of a letdown when 1.0 came out this fall (0.93/Elgg "Classic" has been around much longer), but it's looking much better now in version 1.2.

I say this because Joomla as a community site is a kludged CMS. Joomla was never built to support community sites, and just because developers have struggled mightily to find workarounds doesn't mean Joomla is really a first-round candidate for building a community site. It is serviceable for community sites, but only conditionally, like a lesser of two evils for a given project. (Drupal's interface, vs. Joomla's ACL.)

If it seems like I'm underselling Joomla, take a look at the "community site" you are on right now. I'd say Joomla.org is a model of the best that can be done with Joomla within fairly sensible, conservative parameters, in terms of maintenance and future upgrade needs.

What you see here as interactive, community features: 1) phpBB forum and 2) jxtended's comments component, which uses Gravatars, a hosted service from Wordpress/Automattic. These are not integrated as would be necessary on a top notch social networking site. Joomla article content is not integrated with forum and comment content. Joomal users are not integrated with forum users and comment posters. None of this can happen without major changes to the Joomla core.

Here are my thoughts on the leading "community" extensions for Joomla:

Community Builder:
I've used it quite a bit and am a subscriber to the CB documentation, which is their way of making money on the project. CB is very functional and extensible, but it's a beast to customize in its functionality and (especially) its design. CB lacks in some fundamentals, which is mainly due to Joomla's own limitations--namely the ACL governing user roles, access levels, and permissions. Subscriptions, for instance, are only just becoming possible (commercial, beta release pending). A related limitation is that CB has no self-grouping functionality--you have to use GroupJive for that, which is still in beta but moving toward a stable release now after a period of falling by the wayside. GJ is kind of an extension of an extension. You can use it without CB, but you still need part of the CB codebase to do this.

The inelegance of Joomla+CB+GJ (and maybe a forum) without solid subscription functionality (or SEF) suggests what a nightmare upgrading can become. If Joomla 1.6 makes major changes to the core again, namely in the ACL as anticipated, migration rather than simple upgrade from 1.5 is a daunting prospect.

Having been so established in Joomla 1.0, the shift the 1.5 has probably been extra-difficult for CB. CB has aimed at pleasing everyone: cross-compatibility with Joomla 1.0, 1.5, Mambo and possibly some of the other forks out there. It is improving slowly, and soon there will be templates and a templating system available for it, but the proliferation of alternatives suggests progress has been too slow, and perhaps the underlying framework is undesirable to many people.

If you want a quick clone of something like MySpace, CB is probably not so good for that. But if you want more of a customizable, basic framework for a social site, CB will deliver this, and it may be the most important thing in the long run.

At the same time, CB probably suffers from having been around so long. My sense is that it conforms a great deal to the old Mambo/Joomla conceptual architecture and did not anticipate or follow the architecture of social media. There will need to be some degree of catch-up work as a result, while ideally remaining flexible and strong in the fundamentals.

I've never liked the way CB exists alongside the core Joomla user manager and registration system, rendering them redundant and a potential vulnerability, but there is probably no other way to do it. It's also an annoyance that the Joomla core allows integration between its Contacts component and user manager but CB makes Contacts redundant and useless unless you have contacts who are not users and have no CB account. Again this is kind of a Joomla core induced problem. If user management, content, contact and other core components could be removed or replaced easily, or if they had been originally designed for scalability and customization, things would be very different. These limitations in Joomla itself are bound to affect any big social extension.

JomSocial:
I haven't installed it, and the demo doesn't inspire me to buy it just to try it. It strikes me as a probably a faster and more direct path to building a standard social networky site where people waste time sharing videos of stupid pet tricks. This is what a lot of people want to do with CB, and they will probably be happier with JomSocial. I am more interested in a very flexible social framework than yet another myspace clone.

JomSocial comes at a high price, and my experience with other Azrul products is that cost does not mean A+ quality. Azrul's well-established JomComments component was a letdown for me--convoluted, disorganized UI, some language text hard coded in program files and not included in master language files, some persistent RSS and SEF bugs and support unable to address them...

That is the main reason why I will take a pass on JomSocial until it is really established and users can assess it more objectively. What would it take to make it operate more like LinkedIn than MySpace; is that really possible or desirable? That's the kind of thing I want to know.

Joomunity:
I haven't installed this one either, but I may do so at some point. Since it's free, like CB, you have only your time to lose. Initial reports of a very difficult installation put Joomunity on my wait-and-see list too. It looks like they are progressing. Like JomSocial, Joomunity seems like is a very pre-scripted Facebook-like extension that might be tough to bend to other purposes. I would like to know how hard/easy it is to skin it.

jCommunity:
From the demo and features list, it looks like it might be the most sensible option, strong in the fundamentals and open to being used for a variety of purposes. It certainly claims to offer more of what CB should do and might be able to do everything that can be done with CB and GroupJive together--and then some. Subscriptions are lacking but it has some kind of extended ACL functionality, which is really addressing a basic need in Joomla. My view is that Joomla's core should do what jCommunity does.

Anahita:
Yet another. Vaporware?
http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?f ... 4#p1210754

Bottom line:
There are reasons why there are several mostly non-compatible extensions for Joomla that give you the ability to extend Joomla's user profiles and permissions: 1) Joomla can't do it; 2) a lot of Joomla users want to mindlessly look like pop web 2.0 sites; 3) 3PDs are realizing there might be money in this. The result is going to be a lot of bad, johnny-come-lately Joomla social networks that don't have 1/10th the depth of the big ones, and the stale odor is going to be pretty strong in another year or so.

Extensible profiles and permissions are fundamental requirements for a robust CMS and basic to any social media. Joomla's limitations in this area are serious, and they are NOT due to the fact that its core is a legacy of the pre-"web 2.0" era. It is due to to a lack of flexibility and awareness back in the days of Mambo that extensibility in key core components is critical.

Along with the strictures of content being defined by menu items, these core attributes (inflexible ACL and user manager) limit Joomla to being useful chiefly for rapid development of conventional, small to medium-sized websites. It is possible to do more, but the cost in terms of labor time and frustration increases greatly.

That is why I'd recommend looking elsewhere, or waiting to see what Joomla 1.6 brings, unless you are very experienced with highly extended Joomla sites.

There needs to be a common framework in place, in the Joomla core, to handle variable user information fields and access privileges otherwise there are just too many incompatibilities, breaking points and dependencies created by adding extensions that do this work.

[deleted user]

PS: It looks like JomSocial has really cleaned up the look of their sales site in the last few weeks, but the docs, feature, list, and general text writeup is seriously lacking if you are looking for a real understanding of the features and software in short order. I see absolutely no mention of any geocoding capabilities. That certainly should be possible, but evidently there is nothing for it out of the box.

I wonder how 3PD plugin development will proceed for JomSocial since it is commercial. CB never seems to attract hit commercial plugins, and JomComments, which doesn't even have a decent "Latest Comments" module, has never inspired anyone else to make and sell one. The only option that exists is actually a freebie someone (not Azrul) cobbled together.

Will be interesting to see how this all evolves over the next 1-2 years. For now I am sticking with CB where I'm already invested in it as little more than an advanced user/profile manager. Any new social sites I build are not done being built with Joomla, though I admit there is a temptation to do so with the numerous free extensions that keep coming out and because I like it as a familiar old tool with a very comfortable interface.

[joodriver]

hello Krazykat and hello dpk

thanks @ krazykat for raising the issue and special thanks to dpk for his in depth going review. I love to see this great community sharing ideas, experience and much much more.

As i am the bloody newby i have not the wise words and deep insights not the good experience that do seniors have. But i am willing to take part in this viral discussione. So i hope that many many others will share their thoughts and benefi t from the idea-exchange.

regards
joodriver
one of the most excited fans of joomla

[deleted user]

One more thing: Don't forget forum software as a potential solution for a Joomla-based community site. This is potentially one of the easiest ways to do it.

Integrating one of the popular standalone, open source fora to Joomla can also take care of your extended user management/profile/social functionality needs.

I have not gone under the hood with phpBB and SMF in over a year, but obviously they offer all the basic social networking features now. It is mainly a matter of template design to highlight them to make them look right. They're rather buried in the standard templates, like on this site.

You should also consider externally hosted "white label" social network widgets and applications as ways to beef up a Joomla site and actually minimize the complexity of your site. KickApps has Joomla integration now.

http://www.kickapps.com/
http://mashable.com/2007/10/11/kickapps-joomla/

[pmcnamara]

It is amazing to me, that 3 years after I first started using Joomla that the issue of ACL hasn't been addressed in the Joomla Core.

[deleted user]

Yup.

But maybe this can be ignored 3 more years if "the community" can distract itself in building thousands of sites with social extensions that only make money for people selling the extensions.

Serious joke. It seems that the "groupies" who congregate around an open source CMS mostly consist of 1) a few extension and template developers, who create the extensions than make the core CMS customizable to others with little or no programming (or design) ability; 2) a few web developers who can actually make a living off off of pure webdev projects, but many rely on income as extensions and template vendors; 3) a LOT of amateur users who build what are essentially hobby sites that do not turn a profit. I would guess this last group is the main buyer of templates and extensions.

Maybe not. I wonder if anyone is examining this kind of economy and writing about it. Will be interesting to see how it does under a global recession, or with a devalued US dollar.

[FidelGonzales]

One more thing: Don't forget forum software as a potential solution for a Joomla-based community site. This is potentially one of the easiest ways to do it.

Integrating one of the popular standalone, open source fora to Joomla can also take care of your extended user management/profile/social functionality needs.

I have not gone under the hood with phpBB and SMF in over a year, but obviously they offer all the basic social networking features now. It is mainly a matter of template design to highlight them to make them look right. They're rather buried in the standard templates, like on this site.

You should also consider externally hosted "white label" social network widgets and applications as ways to beef up a Joomla site and actually minimize the complexity of your site. KickApps has Joomla integration now.

http://www.kickapps.com/
http://mashable.com/2007/10/11/kickapps-joomla/

Outstanding array of posts. THANKS!!!

[deleted user]

What are people using to bridge SMF, phpBB, and other forum software to Joomla now? Has jFusion caught on much?

[FidelGonzales]

What are people using to bridge SMF, phpBB, and other forum software to Joomla now? Has jFusion caught on much?

On several of my sites, I'm still on Joomla 1.0 with SMF 1 and therefore clinging by a thread to JoomlaHacks. Testing Joomla 1.5, I have tested PHPBB3 as well as SMF 1 and SMF 2. JFusion was the easiest. If I hold off on migration and the project progresses well, I will seriously consider Agora Forum (http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/1891/details), as it has group permissions and other slick features.

JFusion -> Universal User Integration - This one is easiest to integrate and integrates with most popular forums, but it does not yet offer wrapped functionality with Joomla URLs, which is why I am likely to again try the following option.
http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions ... 23/details

The revolutionary new JFusion 1.0.8 framework has been released. Now get full control over integrating multiple softwares at the same time, with the new master/slave capabilities. In this version you can also link multiple Joomla installations. JFusion is a free GPL plugin for the award winning Content Management System (CMS) Joomla. JFusion provides universal user integration, by extending the Joomla 1.5 user authentication framework without any core hacks. JFusion does not support every software out-of-the-box, but is designed for people to easily write a plugin to create a bridge, without re-inventing the wheel. Currently supported softwares are: vBulletin 3.7.2, phpBB3, MyBB 1.4, IPB, SMF 1.1.4 and punBB. Automatic dual login is now supported for vbulletin, myBB, IPB, magento and phpBB3!!! NO support for Joomla 1.0.x, as this plugin is dependent on the beautiful Joomla 1.5 framework. A "latest post" type forum activity module is also included this release. NOTE: JFusion is an alpha release product, released for testing purposes and should not be used on production sites.

Simple Joomla! 1.5.x / SMF 2.x bridge - This also worked pretty well for me, but since I had a few issues, I moved onward to test other option but will reconsider it once I began migrating my SMF site here within the month, since it is wrapped with Joomla URLs.
http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions ... 88/details

- wrapped forum, SMF urls are rewrited to point to Joomla!.
- SMF to Joomla! users sync. (not mandatory, you can just use the bridge as a wrapper)
- Multiple views! enjoy the MVC system to add menu items linking to your SMF main pages (ie login, register, members, search and so on)
- SSI module wrapper! enjoy almost 28 SSI functions wrapped for you inside a module, you can have as many as you want! from board news to top posters and so on. Thanks to the wonderful work from SMF guys they are easy to customize to better fit your site look.
- Synced sessions! Joomla! and SMF logged users are granted to be always linked; if Joomla session expire or SMF session expire then the user is logged out from both of them to keep the site rendering coherent.
- RSS view! wondering where to point your feeds url? SJSB support SMF RSS providing an access point to feeds with rewritten urls.
- Joomla! tables and SMF tables may be on different hosts/db, no need to keep them on the same one.

[deleted user]

Nice, thanks! That is good to know.

[Stasys]

don't use proprietary ones, use only gpl

[joodriver]

hello Stasys

thanks for writing...

don't use proprietary ones, use only gpl

You are right... I am a strong believer in the open source-idea. And therefore i think that the joomunity is the best solution - on the long run ... since it is the open-source-solution among the discussed ones...

The open source model offers an entirely new way for developers and increasingly knowledgeable, interactive users to collaborate and build upon the best of the commons. The result: open source is reaping tremendous leaps in innovation, and standards-based, interoperable solutions.

btw: is Joomunity total open - does this project stay open?

It is allmost trivial but resarch found out... that..the virtual community inrceeasingly engage in voluntary collaborative production of digital goods and services which became highly successful in recent time. Within a culture of gift-giving and generalized social exchange, knowledge as the main resource of the community is multiplied by giving it away freely to others and thus, fosters contribution behavior. Friendship, peer reputation and external feed-back provided by a global user community represent highly motivating social rewards which, combined with individual gain of knowledge, constitute a self-sustaining system of exchange.

love open source... and now i continue to try to install joomunity!


BTW; This thread with his great contributions [as from dpk and others ] present also great evidence of the community behavours which provides with individual gain of knowledge and it constitutes a self-sustaining system of exchange....

That said i want to ask you to continue reviewing, writing and discussing...

best regards
JooDriver

[deleted user]

"Proprietary" is a vague and often-misused or misunderstood term. It doesn't indicate the variety of restrictions or non-restrictions that are possible when an author asserts ownership and control over a product, which is all that "proprietary" means.

Here is the JomSocial license agreement:
http://www.jomsocial.com/overview/licen ... ement.html

Basically you can only use JomSocial on only one installation of Joomla unless you purchase license extensions. The code is not encoded, and you can modify it but not redistribute it without permission, and JomSocial claims ownership of any modifications you make.

That last part seems pretty far out and unenforceable. Has there ever been any real enforcement of proprietary rights in relation to Joomla templates or extensions?

[Stasys]

JomSocial is not GPL and conflists with joomla

[joodriver]

hello Stasys,

thanks for the input.

JomSocial is not GPL and conflists with joomla

hopefully Joomunity is GPL and stays open source. The user base is getting bigger and bigger.
I allready decided to give it a try. It looks great and feature rich.

i am interested in how easys to skin it. Hope that i can skin it easy.

best regards
joodriver

BTW; i asked the devs on Joomunity-forum: Is Joomunity gpl-ized or not?! Will it stay open in future... see http://forum.yooonity.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=116

i will let you know the resuts... ;-)

[deleted user]

Thanks joodriver. I am curious to know about the skinning on joomunity also. CB is coming out with some themes, and JoomlaPraise just release one for JomSocial.

Is there any skinning/theming/templating system for jCommunity?

[Stasys]

also you can download their files and find license file and read it, this information should be in their package

[joodriver]

hello Stasys

also you can download their files and find license file and read it, this information should be in their package

* This file is part of the Joomunity distribution. Detailed
* copyright and licensing information can be found
* in the doc/COPYRIGHT and doc/LICENSE files which should be
* included in the distribution.
*
* @copyright 2006 - 2008 Doctor Stonyhills
* @license http://www.Joomunity.org/license GPLv2 Open Source
* @version $Id:$
* @link http://dev.Joomunity.com/package/Joomunity
* @since 18620085:22

hmm Open Source or not? probably yes... if there is not something else is told in the docs?!

- joordriver

[deleted user]

Looks like it's GPL and the copyright would refer to the name/brand, but shouldn't that be a trademark?

[joodriver]

hello dpk, hello all,

thanks for the quick answer.

Looks like it's GPL and the copyright would refer to the name/brand, but shouldn't that be a trademark?

i have written a question in the forums at joomunity-forums. The Project-Manager answered quickly:

see http://forum.yooonity.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=116

yes, joomunity is free (and stay free) for everyone. you could feel free to use this great (SN Class) component on your website / websites. :lol:

please kindly note, that some app's will be paid. for example: groups or bridges for seyret, eventlist, and other. of course api will be paid ! :ugeek:

starting from new year, some our services will be also paid. if you are interested in installation, integration (other) services, not only joomunity but also other joomla's component's, their settings, etc just let us know about.

if you are interested, you (and everyone) could write an pm to Landon.

regards-Łukasz "the avenger" Walczyński :twisted:
Project Manager
http://my.joomunity.org

so - i give it a try. I allready downloadet it and in the next few days i will play with the code, try out the skinning-options...

best regards
joodriver

[Stasys]

it can be free but also not gpl

where you found this?

* This file is part of the Joomunity distribution. Detailed
* copyright and licensing information can be found
* in the doc/COPYRIGHT and doc/LICENSE files which should be
* included in the distribution.
*
* @copyright 2006 - 2008 Doctor Stonyhills
* @license http://www.Joomunity.org/license GPLv2 Open Source
* @version $Id:$
* @link http://dev.Joomunity.com/package/Joomunity
* @since 18620085:22

also you should read doc/COPYRIGHT and doc/LICENSE files

[joodriver]

hello dear Stasys

your re right - free but not gpl-ized this is a kind of a third way... isnt it.

it can be free but also not gpl where you found this?

i found it eg in this header of controller.php a file out of
joom_unity\joomunity\administrator\components\com_joomunity

i found it eg in this header of controller.php

* This file is part of the Joomunity distribution. Detailed
* copyright and licensing information can be found
* in the doc/COPYRIGHT and doc/LICENSE files which should be
* included in the distribution.
*
* @copyright 2006 - 2008 Doctor Stonyhills
* @license http://www.Joomunity.org/license GPLv2 Open Source
* @version $Id:$
* @link http://dev.Joomunity.com/package/Joomunity
* @since 18620085:22

also you should read doc/COPYRIGHT and doc/LICENSE files[/quote]

you are right - i will do it tomorrow...

best regards
joodriver

[mkmagu]

I'd suggest looking at Drupal or a collaborative, social media/publishing platform that was specifically designed for that purpose, like Elgg, which has an extensible and replaceable ACL. (Imagine that, Joomlaphiles!) Elgg was a bit of a letdown when 1.0 came out this fall (0.93/Elgg "Classic" has been around much longer), but it's looking much better now in version 1.2.

You might also want to look at Dolphin, It has some great features and it comes with a free version or a paid one. I have 2 sites running it now.
http://www.boonex.com/

[deleted user]

I just noticed that some of the commercial Joomla blogging extensions (Idoblog and Myblog) have extended user profile and community/group features with possible CB tie-ins. That's another way to do a social site with Joomla. Keeping up with all this stuff is quite a chore--what can be done using what and what else it will/will not work with.

On Dolphin: Boonex offers free and commercial versions, leading me to think the free stuff is probably crippleware with limited FOSS development and support compared to single FOSS products like Joomla, Drupal, Elgg, etc. Additionally, the Dolphin demo site is poorly designed and rather ugly on its face. I'd guess it may not be so hot SEO-wise and is probably a beast when it comes to template design, given the appearance of the demo site. Especially on a commercial product, if it looks bad, it probably is bad. Dolphin doesn't look completely bad, but it seems well within the D+/C- range.

[dauricejordan]

dpk, reading your comments has helped a lot. I am considering Azrul - MyBlog and IDoBlog but I don't which is better. Do you have experience with these? If so can you give me some pros and cons?

Thanks

[FidelGonzales]

dpk, reading your comments has helped a lot. I am considering Azrul - MyBlog and IDoBlog but I don't which is better. Do you have experience with these? If so can you give me some pros and cons?

Personally, I prefer to maintain blogging within core Joomla content strucure, realizing it is a limited solution in spite of the many plugins and modules that can be used in conjunction with your blog. This is because Joomla has greater longevity, stability, extensibility and can be migrated to other systems such as Wordpress and the like, if needed. Once you migrate to a component to perform the task, you're generally stuck there. MamBlog is a good example of this thinking.

I think Joomla content structure ought to utilize an improved content and category structure over what it does have. Likewise, it ought to enlist improved multiple blogger (writer) capabilities.

[deleted user]

@Unlimited

I would not say Joomla is a "limited solution" for blogging. You have to add a few extra extensions, but it blogs perfectly well. If you want *only* a blog, Joomla isn't for you, but if you want a website that does all kinds of things and has one or more blogs, then it makes sense. As does Drupal and a few others.

I agree with you on not seeing the point of taking blog content outside of the core content system, which is perfectly adequate for blogging. Joomla 1.6 is going to improve com_content, so you might want to stay within it for that reason. If the limitations of com_content are a problem, there are alternatives to it in the form of Joomla extensions or other CMSes, like Drupal+CCK+Views. That's not stuff anyone will take on if they just wants to blog.

On Wordpress, the latest version allows auto-updates to the core and plugins. Is this possible with any of the Joomla extensions that integrate WP with Joomla? A core WP update could break the integration, so I wonder if that is a problem.

[dauricejordan]

Thanks Guys for the information and insight. I played around with your suggestions and I'm not sure if that quite solves my problem. Please let me explain why I asked about 3rd party blogs.

I am a Realtor. I am looking to start a community blog on my site as a way of increasing traffic to my sight (ultimately so that I can gain new business). I want to be able to write about whatever I think members of my site may be interested. It could be real estate. It could be restaurants. It could politics. If I talk about a new restaurant that I tried and want my users to try; I want them to be able come back say, hey that place is great or it stinks, etc.

I played around with the free version of IDoBlog and it seems okay. It seems to do what I want on the surface. I would have to for over $60+ to get all the bells and whistles. I hope to avoid paying for it ultimately not liking it once I get in.

There is no free version for MyBlog to test. You have to pay $45 for a 30 day trial. I decided to do some research and came across this blog/forum.

One of the great features in both is the ability to ping blog search engines like Technorati, etc. This could mean more traffic to the site. They also integrate with CB if I decided to create a "community." Azrul (from reading this forum) has its own community too.

The internal blogging for Joomla seems cool but I don't know that it accomplishes what I need. Or maybe I am not seeing the whole picture.

Also what is about a 3rd party blog that will have me regretting it down the road?

Thanks