The Osmosoft Social Network - Elgg

I have always found social networking sites fascinating, so when i got the opportunity to install Elgg I jumped high in the air. So what is elgg? In its own words :

"Elgg is an open source social platform based around choice, flexibility and openness: a system that firmly places individuals at the centre of their activities."

In BT we are keen to understand social networks. We love facebook, but we know it has some openness issues. I have previously asked the question what would happen if Facebook were to be open sourced? Well here we have an app that is open source and does facebook type stuff.

So at a first glance it looks nice :

You get all the things you would expect, most notably RSS everywhere. The problem with social networking applications is that its very hard to evaluate them when you are the only user.

So here is the link if anyone would like to log in and try using Elgg,

http://osmosoft.servehttp.com/elgg/

Please be aware that this is only an experimental instance for you and I to look around and play with. It is in no way a permanent installation. If you have any views on Elgg then please let me know.

There is a wide selection of Plugin, if you would like me to make any particular ones available please let me know.

In the Osmosoft offices we recently tried Mash which Yahoos answer to Facebook. Its nice but is also another social network to add to a long list. I cant help but think that the next big thing will be something that allows you to centrally control your identity across all the social networks. Where facebook fits into that we will have to wait and see. Most facebook users are not even aware they cannot export their data. It will be interesting to see how peoples view of facebook changes as they realise their data is trapped inside.