Are you facing the challenge of developing a social networking platform? And what a challenge, indeed! Even though we're talking about Drupal, which is, after all, “built with communities in mind” and with core features geared towards enabling user content creation, it still takes a lot of time and money to pull off a successful Drupal social project! Since it depends on user-generated content, which “feeds itself on interactivity, if you don't "nail it" in terms of user experience, it will be a major fail. And this is where Drupal 8 comes in to “lure” us with its Open Social distribution, a features-packed, functionality-loaded base platform to build and to grow your future social networking website on. Let's dig into the details, shall we:
“Good for you!”
I had to start my blog post with this sincere encouragement. Although it's not one of the quickest or the easiest types of web projects to work on, as a Drupal developer, it's, due to all these mentioned “inconveniences” a confidence-boosting one!
And, after all, Drupal might rock, as a framework, for powering e-commerce websites, but we shouldn't overlook its potential as a social networking platform. Even though its social-oriented capabilities are not quick and easy to trigger!
Drupal supports your initiative to build a social platform right from its core! Through its whole user creating content built-in feature and its more-than-useful user permissions and roles assigning system.
That being said: it would be a pity not to leverage all these features and not to turn them into a powerful high-trafficked social networking website.
Building Drupal Social Networking Sites “The Old Way”
And by “the old way”, I do refer Drupal 7.
“Back then”, developing a social software with Drupal was a more or less discouraging “ordeal”.
The “old” mentality of launching your website “packed” with all the social-oriented features and functionality right from the very start contributed a whole lot to increasing the initial “investments” of time and money.
But let's talk facts, shall we?
Let's highlight some of the basic steps, key “triggers” that a Drupal developer would need to perform in order to built a social networking platform “the old way”:
1. Carrying out all the needed preparations and planning out
Which usually mean customizing your Dashboard, going through all the other sections in your toolbar for a quick (or not) review and proper customization (where needed).
Here we should mention sections such as: Comments, People, Permissions, Roles and, of course, Content (with its Taxonomy and Vocabulary sub-sections playing some crucial roles in any Drupal social networking development process).
Here, you would focus on Static Content first (About Us, Contact Us etc.), setting all its components in place. On grouping content, establishing tags, etc.
It's only after this “non-customizable” content structure has been nicely structured that you would be focusing on the dynamic, user-generated parts of the content on your website.
2. Enabling the Modules Supporting User-Generated Content
And here I'm referring to Blog, Comment, Poll, Forum, Book, core modules in Drupal 7 (that we're not going to detail in this post) enabling users to contribute with their own content and to have it uploaded on various sections of your website.
As for you, you're left to decide how you want your users' content to be displayed/structured on your website and, of course, to select the topics of discussion. Thus discouraging spammers and keeping your site clear of non-relevant user-generated content.
It's at this stage in your Drupal social networking development process that you're assigning different roles and different levels of permissions to your users.
Drupal allows you to enable trustworthy authenticated users to manage topics on your forum, to moderate discussions, even to introduce brand new forums.
And this list of elementary preparations, triggers, customization and endless configurations prior to launching your Drupal-powered social platform could go on and on... and on.
Where do you add that you'd still need to “roll up your sleeves” and “get your hands dirty” making the required fixes, now and then, in your database.
It's not the “What” that makes the old “Drupal 7-specific” way of building social networking sites quite discouraging, but the “How”. It's a cumbersome, time-consuming (budget-challenging), non-agile way of building a website.
Build Faster and With Lower Initial Costs Using Open Social
By the time you've even started to test your Drupal social networking platform developed “the old way”, several Open Social-powered sites will be already up and running. And constantly extending, as well!
Since time is a way too valuable resource in today's fast-paced digital landscape, you cannot afford “wasting” it on web development projects that are taking too long.
Agility is the key and Open Source, the Drupal 8 built-in distribution, has “agility” carved in its DNA!
Some might call it “generic”, yet Open Social provides you, right from the start, with the basic platform (one already packed with all the key social-oriented features and functionality), to help you get your site up and running. With less time and reduced initial costs!
Being ideally lightweight (loaded with precisely those must-have social features and user-content enabling functionality), it makes an easier to handle and to build on type of social platform.
In other words: Open Social makes a perfectly balanced blending of features that you'd need for launching your social networking site “on-the-go”. It's you who'll decide when and what to improve, what additional features to enhance its social networking functionality with once it's up and running!
Once you “release it out into the wild”, you get to re-use some of its most efficient features, to constantly improve it and thus help it scale with its growing traffic, your users' growing needs and with your own growing business ambitions, as well.
Moreover, due to its open nature, your Drupal social website's future growth's being “fueled” by a whole community of innovative developers and creative web designers!
Building social communities and intranets made easy! And cost-effective on a short-term, too!
Why Open Social Over Other Social Platform?
There are 2 major types of social platforms “competing against” Open Social:
- the externally-controlled ones (Facebook, Google etc.), which leave you with little or no ownership over your data whatsoever and which, in way too many cases, undermine user rights, as well
- the proprietary, closed-source ones (Sharepoint, Jive), which leave you with no freedom to customize your own website to your needs, applying the “one size fits all” policy
Compared to these two types of non open-source social platforms Open Social:
- is flexible (no vendor lock-in): you get to expend it, to improve it with precisely those features that best align with you goals and organizational needs
- it's backed up by a worldwide Drupal-community: the code is constantly under close review, its design is continously being improved, new features are being developed
- it gives you complete “sovereignty” over your data, your own social software and over the future goals that you set up for your website
Social-Oriented Features That You Get “By Default” in Open Social
Now, since I've kept telling you about how Open Social reduces the development time (and initial costs), but without compromising the social networking functionality, I should highlight its out of the box “wonder” features now shouldn't I?
Well, here they are, a whole bundle of must-have features turning Open Social into a both surprisingly lightweight, yet powerful social platform:
1. Content Types and Structure
- you're offered two content types: topics and events (Blogs and News falling into the “topic” category)
2. User Profiles and Signup
- to the easily configurable closed/open signup feature and the one enabling users to set up their own profiles (adding interest, full name, image etc.), add the user roles feature (a central one for any social platform), as well; there are 4 of them: Administrator, Authenticated User, Content Manager and Site Manager
3. User Groups
- enabling you to create open groups for discussions, to create new topics, to add new members
4. Media Management
- adjust, resize and add images wherever you want to on the website
5. Search and Notifications
- the Messaging feature, too, is a “default” one (a crucial feature for any social networking website “aspiring for success”), along with the Search feature enabling the user to scan through the Events, Users and the Content sections on the platform
6. Timeline and Commenting
7. Responsive and Multilingual Support
- Open Social aligns with Drupal 8's “mobile-first” philosophy and it's (obviously) responsive “by default”
8. Events Management
And this is how my “pledge” for using Open Social as a base platform for building social networking websites “the agile way” looks like. I looking forward to reading your thoughts about this Drupal 8 distribution in the comments section below!