Thread

Well, seems like EllisLab is getting their priorities right 😊 Seriously, MT and EE serve different markets. I, for one, have absolutely no need for what you call the “social stuff”, and I am probably not alone in that sentiment. To those who do need that functionality, there are a number of third party modules out there. I am sure that they could be better still, more advanced or powerful, but I don’t feel that is an issue that EllisLab must address in their core code.

Ingmar I agree.

I think there’s a difference between social stuff and ‘collaborative’ stuff that people don’t define better.

For example: MT might be going after an expanding ‘social network’ app scene with their new features.

Whereas EE, with integrated wiki and forum modules has a great core basis for discussion/collaboration. And there seems to be a lot of demand on this forum to enhance the user profiles/connections to feed into this (yes, friend or task groups can potentially be served by external add-ons - but that functionality isn’t addressed is it? we are awaiting the solspace friends module for example that would serve this purpose).

What do you see as the different markets?
MT = enterprise blogging EE = flexible, robust CMS.
?

This is how I see it.

While I agree that most of the userbase for EE wouldn’t use that functionality, it would be GREAT to have it available. I’m 90% done with a new site that will replace my blog. In it I’ve changed the look to be a news site, no longer a simple blog. So there’s not much visible on the front page, or others for that matter, to draw people in. However, if I had some of those social options available I could include them and give enough alternate participation info to attract more people. It would serve to two separate genres without having to have completely different content.

Not sure if that makes total sense. But the fact of the matter is, the blogosphere and general web is moving much closer to more user interaction, and I think it would be a mistake to overlook that.

Someone is going to do this. A 3rd party developer could attract a LOT of small purchases by writing this for a site like Solspace. It’s going to happen. It’s just a matter of whether EE will do it or a 3rd party developer, and when

JT, it sounds from here that your intuition is probably spot on.

Quite interested to see what you have luck with, as activity on the front page.  As your site is political as I remember it, could be that this might have a place even for Twitter. 

It should be of some use to rallying the troops, to have ongoing indications of ‘what’s going on’ at party central, and what other teams are doing in the field that day, to spark one’s own.

Regards,
Clive

Well, seems like EllisLab is getting their priorities right Seriously, MT and EE serve different markets. I, for one, have absolutely no need for what you call the “social stuff”, and I am probably not alone in that sentiment. To those who do need that functionality, there are a number of third party modules out there. I am sure that they could be better still, more advanced or powerful, but I don’t feel that is an issue that EllisLab must address in their core code.

+1 for keeping EE a CMS and not another social networking blah blah software tool. Let’s keep the social stuff in the plugins and modules. 😊

Ryan, for me at least the point isn’t in any way to influence what Ellis Labs does - rather to see that JT has a very clear case where some form of social activity can help his website.

I have a feeling that on his political site, this would no more be ‘here - share all my info’ than on a business site.  It will need to be subtle, and useful.  Useful can include communicating a sense of consistent forward-moving action.

It’s interesting to consider why so many have felt the need to broadcast a ‘no social wanted here’ recently.

I haven’t been much interested myself when it’s just been self-promotion for a certain group.  But a mechanism is a mechanism, and it can have beneficial uses beyond the ones imagined by those originally putting it together.

Maybe we will all learn something, once JT sees what he wants and what works for him.  That’s why I liked to recognise his thinking.

And yes, extensions etc. can be a very good way to link whatever turns out desired into an EE website.

Regards
Clive

Clive, you make a good point and I certainly wasn’t trying to not recognize anyone’s thinking. I’m not against social networking tools as add-ons. 😊

Clive makes very good points.

Personally i don’t care for social sites like facebook, myspace et al. But what I do know is that millions of people flock to those sites. I’m not interested in building a social site, but I think it’d be a big bonus to be able to offer the kinds of things that make those millions of people feel warm and fuzzy.

In this day and age people want to contribute and share. Even news sites do this to an extent. So my thought is if I could make my site a tiny bit more inviting by offering a handful of little things that people already clearly enjoy it could make a big difference. I get a lot of unique traffic. Allowing people to share and exchange thoughts would bring in many more repeat visitors.

Currently my site looks just like a plain old blog. But that’s going to change substantially. I don’t want to display the site before it’s ready though so I can’t.

But what I’m saying is that utilizing small pieces of a big picture can make a really big difference. To take the stance that ‘no social stuff is important’ is a bit close minded, though I do understand. The reality is though, that some of those aspects are what is driving websites right now. I’d rather not turn a blind eye to a hugely popular aspect simply because I don’t enjoy it. It’s winning repeat visitors that I want.

So again, while I agree that social sites don’t do much for me, like a lot of people here, I’d like to have some of those options. Hopefully someone like Solspace will take the reigns and build it. I don’t see this being part of the core, or even a 1st party developed plugin, but it’s a perfect seller for a 3rd party developer that could really focus on it.

Well said JT.

Enabling ratings for people can be beneficial to the blog, to help you focus your content and feature what people want (most highly rated on the homepage), while favouriting stuff is a great way to give a ‘value add’ for members, who want to come back and check on their favourite areas/posts (ie wiki pages etc) when they return.

Also I just had a user submission competition, and if there was a way for people to collect that media in their CP, then thats a world away from just uploading stuff onto social sites where it is all about ‘me’ rather than contributing something useful to the site.

mlh

Well, I still don’t think that needs to be “core” functionality (ie, be provided by EllisLab). It would be a separate module anyway, and we already have “Rating”, “Tag” and “Favorites” modules. At the end of the day, what does it matter who programmed them? You won’t get first party support, it’s true, but really, with a renowned vendor having his dedicated support staff I don’t see that as much of an issue. (Disclaimer: I do some work for Solspace)

Ingmar, don’t get me wrong, I think these solspace modules are great - in fact I’m planning to use some imminently—my point was I think there’s some missing pieces in the jigsaw.

Oh and to get back on topic 😉 that it was interesting how MT4 was pitching itself and getting press for it, despite the fact EE had many, if not more, of these features already.

Well, I still don’t think that needs to be “core” functionality (ie, be provided by EllisLab). It would be a separate module anyway, and we already have “Rating”, “Tag” and “Favorites” modules. At the end of the day, what does it matter who programmed them? You won’t get first party support, it’s true, but really, with a renowned vendor having his dedicated support staff I don’t see that as much of an issue. (Disclaimer: I do some work for Solspace)

INteresting. I’d never looked at the favorites before. That’s a great option. I do own the tag module and am using it, though I’m not sure where to put it in the new site I can assure you i will find a spot.

I’m not sure I care about ratings, but after reading through the favorites it appears that there is a ranking system based on how many people save links to their favs. So that’s a perfect way to do it.

It looks like the only thing that’s left for me is profile stuff. I’ve already decided to build (using freeform) a custom form so guests or members (not sure on perms yet) can submit their own entries and there will be a ‘user submitted’ section. So if I pick up the favs and continue using tags that’s just about everything I’d need. I’ve got the defacto social bookmark sites but I’m restricting that to only display the big ones. digg, delicious, yahoo.

Actually after looking Ingmar is right. most of this stuff is already on the solspace site. I’ve been extremely happy with the tags module and just starting to break into the freeform stuff but i can definitely say that the stuff I’ve seen from there is top notch.