> > > I built Island using Drupal and Drupal IMHO is the best software for > building community websites. Loads of community sites are built using Drupal > and it's widely used in education (See Drupal in Education > group<http://groups.drupal.org/drupal-education>). > The biggest upside to using Drupal is Drupal makes it possible to build a > very customized solution to meet BYU's specific needs (not a canned solution > that sorta works). (read Situated > Software<http://www.shirky.com/writings/situated_software.html>for more why > that is a very good thing). If we go with Linked-In -- we'd be > constrained by their limits and vision. Same problem with every other > commercial "solution". It'd be much better if BYU were to roll their own > solution. > Kyle > > What are the pros and cons/limitations of Linked-in and other social networks that people have used? What features would make the BYU alumni net desirable and what failures would kill it? Obviously poor, slow and inflexible designs would kill it. I'm not trying knock your work on Island here, but going forward I see some problems with its implementation. Their's lots of vertical and horizontal bars hogging screen space in my non-maximized web browser, and weird line mixing issues in the narrower columns of the content as a result (cosmetic issues on thousands of possible platforms can kill a sites usability).
One of the hardest challenges for online communities/social networks are saturation and getting and maintaining critical mass. Everyone wants to launch their social network following the web 2.0 buzz, but few will really obtain a significant following because of market saturation. What happens to ISYS's little Island and it's content when BYU has a world wide social network. In some ways, Island is a pretty ironic name when you consider that ISYS is not an island when there are tons of topics with cross disciplinary interest (as demonstrated by your participation in UUG). One thing I don't remember Neal covering is a focus on continuing education and interaction with BYU faculty. The main focus was job finding, career development and sharing information about places, He also talked about going offline in the sense that those who aren't tech savvy, or don't have time/interest to be super involved online could have stubs of offline contact info. It might be wise to moderate any content that receives a complaint. You would have to limit full access to the site to those who have actually attended classes/ have alumni status, since anyone can make a bogus RY netID (I've made at least 5). But it would also be nice to allow employers to join and post listings as well as be able to view those who elect to show up in skill searches. There are definite advantages to a "trusted" network where a specific person is held accountable for everything they post, and the world at large doesn't have access to content which is personal (aside from identity theft). Privacy and safety is a whole unsolved can of worms for Social networks as highlighted by the recent myspace suicide indictment. Scott K.
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