So many people launch new blogs everyday. So many people duplicate other blogs without shame. So many people use WordPress. So, having that said, how come many people have no interest in creating their own social networking sites?
Perhaps a lot people don’t know that some of the more popular social networks such as Sphinn are run using free open source software called, Pligg. Maybe people know about Pligg, but assume that it is complicated to set up?
If you can set up a WordPress blog, you can set up a Pligg Content Management System. While it is indeed a little bit more complicated than WordPress, it’s kind of like hitting level two on a video game, it might take you a few tries before you complete the level.
Pligg is the WordPress equivalent for setting up social networks. I have used Pligg in the past, just messing around of course, and I really enjoyed how simple and easy to maintain the program was.
Why Should I Start A Social Network Site?
You may be asking yourself, “Why should I start a social netoworking site? There are already places like Digg, Sphinn and StumbleUpon. If I thought about it many years ago, I would have, but now it’s too late.”
Duh… then why do you create blogs? There is over 100 million blogs in the blogosphere, yet people don’t think twice about setting up one of those.
The way I see it is if you want to start your own social bookmarking/ networking site, go for it!!! The competition is very much lower than starting a blog and in many ways its so much easier to run. In fact, the more I think about it myself, I too am considering starting one.
One reason that comes to my mind why starting a social bookmarking / networking site might be a neat idea is the fact that you don’t really have to worry too much about original content. Well, you do and don’t.
Instead of writing your own content, you are simply in many ways now just reporting the news. You are doing things not much differently than you already do in Stumble, Sphinn or others… the only differnece is that you are bookmarking the pages you find on the Internet using your own site instead of someone elses.
I don’t think it’s all that much more difficult to get your own social network site popular than getting your WordPress blog popular. So the next time you feel a little energetic and want to start a new site, you might consider breaking away from WordPress for a change and try Pligg.
If you did decide to start your own blend of a social networking site, what kind of topics would you cover?
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Date/Time: 6-21-2008 14:20:45 Comment #15810
I agree with you that the competition is smaller but it’s stronger. It’s kind of hard to compete with Social networking sites managed by actual companies rather than just another blogger on their home with a shared hosting plan.
It’s almost as if I were to compete against http://www.techcrunch.com or even Gizmodo. Those blogs have gained a lot of trust over the years and unless I can come up with a great brand new idea it’s gonna be hard as heck to achieve what they’ve done.
Starting a Social Networking site might be a good idea, but it takes a lot of time and effort to maintain it.
Great post.
Date/Time: 6-21-2008 14:52:05 Comment #15811
I run a semi-social networking site, and i agree.. It’s a great way to put your site on ‘autopilot’ and let the users generate content for you..
On the other-hand, running this type of site takes a lot more behind the scenes work, so no matter what, it’s not easy.. but it’s work out pretty well for me..
Date/Time: 6-21-2008 18:03:05 Comment #15816
I agree, it’s a good idea to consider and not all that much more work that setting up a decent wordpress site. Yeah, as mentioned, it can be hard to compete with the huge sites but that isn’t the idea either. The way to take advantage is to go niche and try to create a small community of people with the same interest til it becomes THE spot for that niche. Might be harder to keep information flowing with really small niches but it doesn’t have to always be “news”. For example, if you create a standard pligg site based on, say “fly fishing”, you probably won’t have much related “real” news to have posted but that doesn’t mean that people with fly fishing sites and blogs or just fans of fly fishing can’t submit various stories, tips, locations and new/old product reviews.
What can end up happening is many of the related blogs and sites in that niche will want to be connected to the pligg site and submit their own content as it helps them as far as more exposure, backlinks and new traffic.
And if you set up an adsense revenue share addon for pligg then they can even make money off their submissions.
I set up a “celebrity gossip” pligg site myself. It was mostly started as a way to get more links and traffic for the content from my own celeb blogs but other bloggers are finding it useful as well. It is still kind of in “beta” as I haven’t started really promoting it yet and only a small core of users know about it yet but I have some promotional work planned very soon
. If you want to check it out and get an idea here it is: http://CeleBits.com
And of course if you happen to have any celeb type blogs please feel free to join the small community
.
Date/Time: 6-21-2008 19:37:24 Comment #15818
I have purchased this domain for a pligg site about a few months back, but my designer backed out on me
So far it’s just sitting there waiting for a unique design. I do agree with you though that starting a social network will work as long as the topic is unique and different from some of the big ones 
-Mike
Date/Time: 6-21-2008 19:39:27 Comment #15819
what domain name did you purchase to run Pligg?
Date/Time: 6-21-2008 23:37:16 Comment #15823
Too many social networking sites….
I rather spend my time watching people on the beach than making “friends” online
good luck
Date/Time: 6-22-2008 10:48:38 Comment #15853
I’ve thought about this many times in the past, just never capitalized on it. It may be something to add to the ever growing list of things to do in the future. I may grab a couple of buddies and tackle this one as a team…..
Date/Time: 6-22-2008 12:44:35 Comment #15859
I never thought seriously about doing it even though I knew there was free software to do it. However, this post gave me some interesting ideas.
You’ve got me thinking Garry.
Date/Time: 6-22-2008 16:58:15 Comment #15867
To this of you considering running a social site, would you operate it as a seperate entity or connected to an existing niche site?
Date/Time: 6-22-2008 22:45:47 Comment #15888
I will try it next, first on a niche site where nobody has done it yet.
Date/Time: 6-24-2008 14:40:24 Comment #16072
Hey Garry!
ive actualy been working on a pligg site for nearly 2 weeks and i just uploaded it to the web! its not all up yet, but it will very soon!
if you have afew minutes please check it out and let us know what you think?
its for bloggers like you and me!!! the site is at http://www.blogvibrations.com
Date/Time: 6-25-2008 18:30:06 Comment #16127
I have a pligg powered site . its http://www.KaBlogs.com
Site is currently PR2 and my users are taking advantage of it
Free Pr2 link because 1 vote will bring you in the frontpage for now.
Check it out. template is not yet customized..
Date/Time: 7-27-2008 16:24:59 Comment #17434
There is a lot of competition for general social bookmarking sites. This area is pretty much dominated already. What Pligg is still good for is targeted, niche sites. If you can find a good niche that doesn’t already have a couple social bookmarking/social news sites dedicated to it then you could do all right.
I recently started up a Pligg site for open source software news.
http://www.entirelyopensource.com
Actually it’s a social news site, open source software directory, and feed aggregating service for open source software news, built on Pligg, Joomla and DokuWiki.
Date/Time: 5-29-2009 02:50:06 Comment #33901
Starting a Social Networking site might be a good idea, but it takes a lot of time and effort to maintain it