which CMS for community website ?

[tropic]

Hi all
I' am planning to build a community website, where visitors can write their own threads, upload pictures and videos, write comments on other users' threads, customise their own page and so on ... with or without login. Can you guys please advise me which CMS is suitable for this ? or that covers all these functionalities ?
Thanx

[bill]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld tropic.

There are a number of CMS packages that should meet those basic requirements. You might want to stop over at opensourceCMS.com or the CMSMatrix.org to see which ones best fit your needs.

[rogerd]

Welcome, tropic! When you visit those sites, you'll see a staggering array of CMS options. If you find a few that seem to be most suited to your needs, go over to each one's website and check out the community. What you'd like to see is a high volume of activity and no questions that have been unanswered for very long. You may well have to rely on that community for support down the road.

For what it's worth, Drupal, Joomla (a spinoff of Mambo), and Mambo are frequently mentioned here. Typo3 has been mentioned favorably as well in terms of exceptional power and versatility, but reportedly has a brutal learning curve.

[aussie]

You need vBulletin, while forum software it sets up very easily as a CMS to do exactly what you are asking. No need to look further! The admin CP is easy to use and templates and css files are automated to change around until you are satisfied with the look of your site.

Rod

[deliciousbass]

You can check out Insoshi - it's a new open source social networking platform. Still new, so probably rough and not many features yet, but getting a lot of attention.

[lexipixel]

I've been looking at NING and BOONEX.

I setup a NING community and in about a half hour had it customized, added a few features and some content sent out an invite, ("friended" someone)... I wanted to see the whole "social" aspect at work, and it worked.

What made me feel good about NING was the fact that Marc Andreessen was involved, (he was co-founder of Mosaic web browser, is on FaceBook and Open Media Network board of directors and involved in a lot of other "Web 2.0" companies and projects)...

I haven't setup any Boonex software yet... Why?... They didn't really make it easy enough for me -- I like to do "drive-by software evaluations"... If I can't download or setup software in 5 minutes, (or at least feel like I got somewhere in the setup/install process), I drive by, (unless it's something I really need). Boonex has broken their software into several pieces and is marketing it as "FREE" or "AD FREE"... (the ad-free means, pay to not have their ads -- then they have annual and unlimited licenses... in the end, you can spend hundreds of dollars there before you even know if you bought the right pieces or if it will all work the way you expect without investing a lot of time just reading about it)... Boonex "looks promising", but NING passed the 5-minute test.

I'm still looking for other "Social Networking" software platforms... anyone else know any?

[naughtyweb]

Try BuddyPress (from Wordpress MU developers) and Elgg. I think these two are good community software engines; easy to install and usage.

[lexipixel]

My list of Social Networking CMS solutions is growing.

(in alphabetic order)

Boonex
BroadBandMechanics
BuddyPress
CollectiveX
CrowdVine
KickApps
NING
OneSite
phpFox

I'm still just searching for possible solutions. Once I get them sorted out into SaS v. Software I'll evaluate them more. I have one large community site that needs to go social.

[rogerd]

Thanks for keeping us updated, lexipixel, and let us know what you end up with.

[bilalseo]

use drupal, it is best to organize social tags, labels, avatar,etc. It is also useful while managing bulky contents. Drupal is a best choice of experts.