We’re Taking an Open Direction with Web Communities: Are You In?
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For the community of community owners, operators, moderators, and members: we need better options, and I believe we need them to exist on open platforms. We all have different tastes and we all use different tools, but I think we all can accept that community software should help us grow and flourish. One potential platform for us is found in Drupal, an open source content management system (CMS) that can be molded into a powerful, integrated suite of community experiences – something that can help us make sense of all these social networks we belong to.
For the geeks: Drupal has so much power in its core, and enough fantastic community-contributed modules, that I think it’s time to assemble an Install Profile, complete with beautiful (accessible, microformat’ed, high quality) themes, pre-set Views for any Web community to either install on their own or have hosted at any given Web host that supports Drupal with optimizations. The benefits to you should be more than obvious.
And I don’t mean just the framework for the community platform, I mean… like, it’s ready to go. “It’s not the features, it’s the implementation.” This all started when we began to migrate the existing Lockergnome community to Drupal (5.x, as 6.x had not yet been released and many favorite modules have not yet been brought up to speed). OpenSocial, OpenID, OAuth… just there.
I’m posting this because it’s my hope that I can find partnerships, angels, brain-power, etc. – either from other communities or businesses willing to take part in an open source project that could benefit everybody and themselves at the same time.
My idea is not a unique one, and therein lies its greatest potential.
I don’t want a social network, I want a socially *RELEVANT* network (both on-site and beyond). I don’t want a community platform, I want a participation platform where members are rewarded and ranked appropriately. I don’t want a place where people can just blog, because I’m going well beyond the blog. It’s not just about hosting videos, audio files, or any piece of random media – it’s the discovery mechanisms between them that make them more relevant.
It’s discovery – no matter the community, no matter the type of content. Imagine coming to a site and not just reading about what other people are interested in, but what interests they SHARE with you! Imagine coming to a site and seeing how someone ranks in answers pertaining to your own questions! Oh, I’m confident you may have seen these features elsewhere – but what about for your own site, what about for your own community, what about for your own ideas?
Imagine that, instead of being taken to a “404 Page Not Found” error, seeing a list of potential results – or simply being redirected to the likeliest result if there’s only one in the search index? It’s already possible, but only if the developer makes it possible – or the project leader suggests it as a feature that enhances the user’s experience when things aren’t optimal.
SEO’ed URLs, nimble templates that adhere to a guideline for communities (colors and layout), identity flow, rating, voting, posting, gathering, embedding… a structure that supports both ad hoc and category-driven content… something that is centered on the user instead of the community s/he is involved in. On one type of page, you’d see related links to all the other sections and people throughout the site. To do as much as possible to de-geekify administration so that it’s not so overwhelming to people who just want to have a powerful tool (without needing to be a power user).
It’s not about user-generated content, it’s about their direct and indirect involvement. It’s not about locking them in, it’s about freeing them and giving them tools that they can use or further mold for their own specific needs.
I’m not a startup – I’ve been in business for 11 years, creating my own content, helping create content for other people, and helping people create content for themselves. I’m a community and marketing consultant, and I know full well that my clients could make use of the specific interplay of the modules I’m wanting to bring together.
That’s probably one of the most maddening issues I’m facing: great software that’s only accessible if you go through the company that built it, or if you go through a consultancy that has customized it to resell to high-paying clients. But, here’s the thing: those same people could use some of the things that I want to do with the platform. We all have to put food on our tables, I know – but maybe with enough wisdom and work, we can accomplish something together (helping ourselves and the world beyond our own walls).
When hovering over an avatar, one should see relevant information about that person (name, age of account, recent content, similarities, syndication, etc.). And where’s the intelligent relevance when I happen to be visiting someone’s profile page? Are they like me? Have they visited my blog before? Have they commented on something I’ve done before?
Why can’t a user see more rich statistics about his / her contributions throughout the network? Why can’t someone know where people are coming from, and use that generic intelligence to further foster relationships with others?
The front page of the site should be a rich mix of photos, text, video, tags, a call-to-action, and other relevant information. But what if the community wants to grow organically rather than through pre-set categories or forums? Let each tag page be a “front page” all its own, mirroring the same kind of data that’s related to the tag. Recent blog posts, latest comments, most commented over various periods of time, highest trafficked blogs / questions / groups, related tags, images / audio / video, popular people, newest people… and a user’s profile page could be a compilation of similar data (their own newspaper, if you will).
Of course, if a community or group wants to have predefined categories, they could easily be applied – choosing to elevate the content of certain roles over others. The creation of a subdomain could happen quickly should the community wish to create a group with tools targeted to them – their own wiki, their own forum(s), their own whatever.
When a photo can’t be found for a story, why not dive into properly CC licensed photos from Zooomr or Flickr (and attribute them accordingly) – especially if it was uploaded by the user who created the content that’s tagged with a similar keyword? Let the system help them automatically match all of their content created on disparate sites! Give people an incentive to make external data ecosystems much more complete – your photo on Flickr and your video on YouTube tagged with the same keyword would automatically get sucked into your post if so desired.
Why leave it to the user to figure this stuff out? And if you (reading this) ARE the user, isn’t this something that you’d love to see in all of your various Web communities?
When I’m viewing someone’s lifestream, and I happen to see that they listened to a song on Last.fm, why can’t I click a permalink and find out other people in the network who have also listened to that song – and see which ones I share interests / tags / etc. with?
Why don’t I have the options to set the colors site-wide, or per content type? Why don’t user avatars indicate my relationship with them at a glance (either with a tiny corner color or border change)? Why do I have to load a completely separate page to launch a contact form, to sign up, to sign in? Why aren’t my notification mails filled with more information? Why can’t I… make this relevant?
Monetization can and should go beyond Google AdSense sharing – to any other affiliate network (Amazon, ShoppingAds, Kontera, etc.), or to a dedicated ad network all our own – perhaps through Google Ad Manager since they have a backfill of inventory at their disposal. OpenX, too – the flexibility to swap, built into the theme (dunno, maybe at some point it’ll flow easily within the CMS itself).
For accounting scalability, the member must provide their own account IDs. Essentially, the member receives x% of the impressions that come to any page s/he has created 100% of the content for – potentially adjustable after meeting certain criteria (points, etc.). Imagine leaving a comment in someone’s blog, answering their question, etc. and when that comment exists on a separate page on the system, the person who contributed the comment having a percentage of the ad inventory? No longer are they relegated to living in their own blog, but feeling like they’re getting something back by participating in the network and providing value. All with restrictions and relationships controlling the mechanisms.
And if a community doesn’t want to be monetized, fine – they can turn that feature off. If they don’t want to share ad revenue with their members, fine – they can turn that feature off. At least they’ll have the option!
What’s more, shouldn’t there be a shared license for all content contributed to the community – and the user may define his or her own CC terms for it? It’s such a grey area right now, and I don’t know how that looks in a legal sense. I’m hoping to add all the necessary components that a community site might need before it goes live, so that it’s quite clear what’s going on – let the community leader set ‘er up how they see fit, but at least integrate a wizard to generate a base structure for the legalese.
The bottom line is freedom and flexibility – the freedom to choose, the freedom to grow, the freedom to leave (and take your profile data with you, or easily transfer it to another system). The flexibility to add features that pivot around the user or groups of users – whatever new tool may come along.
I’m not quite a newspaper or a magazine (or a company that owns several of them), but what I’m wanting to create could certainly be used for traditional press outlets. On the Web, you’re a television studio, a radio station, a newspaper, a magazine… you’re a publisher with a vibrant community, where editorial and viewer interaction can intermingle.
We’ll need information architects, developers, designers, quality assurance, copywriting, leaders, and other roles crucial for the initial and ongoing guidance and assistance. I don’t care to fork Drupal (that’s not what this is about) – having recently donated funds to send a couple of developers to Drupalcon, the last thing I want to do is split efforts. It’s great to have a moldable piece of clay, but even better when that clay has been molded into a beautiful statue for all to admire. Drupal is a modular CMS, so anything done within its framework can be deployed to any other Drupal-run site (community-oriented or not).
Adam Kalsey has been assembling the project and helping put many of my suggestions together – but I realized quickly that if we’re going to turn this back over to the community-at-large anyway, it’d make massive sense to let ‘em in on sooner rather than later.
I love brainstorming, but I love seeing ideas come to fruition even more. I do plan on live streaming as many of the efforts as allowed, if only for the greater part of the Drupal community (or “community development” community in general). I see a few things that Drupal.org could use, itself… if only to attract other people to the platform, not just those who use it now. Not trying to step on any toes, just suggesting that if the tools are up to scratch, they should be shared and deployed as living examples of what’s possible.
I have to take action on something, and right now from everything I’ve seen in “the community,” I’ve gotta go with the platform that’s most nimble and hands-on as possible. It’s going to take a good amount of tweaking to get to the point where I’d say it was ready to be “packaged up” and passed out to any other Web community that wanted to use it.
If you’re familiar with svn, can communicate well, can work well with others remotely, need something like this for your own needs (and can’t or don’t have the time or resources to do it alone), wanting to build your resume, understand community / social media, and are hip to doing something with the rest of us… then stay tuned. If you’re someone who has financial resources to contribute so that we can do this more effectively, I’m all ears – as this could give you a tool to use for your own communities as well as be seen as a “good will” gesture. No VC funds, please?
We’re already set up on Assembla, and have just released the Activity Stream for any compatible Drupal site. If the Drupal community moves quickly, they can populate the default list to the most comprehensive social networking outline on the Internet. The FriendFeed API suddenly got a bit more interesting for you, I bet.
Bottom line is: we’re VERY serious about putting this together. We’ve been at it for quite a while.
This weekend, I’ve invited a very small group of people over to my home to “sprint” on this – a project that can still be molded, a project that can still be grown, a project that could help make someone else’s project better. Some of those sprinters may opt to work remotely, and I will start to scout for a public space for the next sprint. If you know of someone in the Seattle area that might be up for something between 9am on Saturday through to Sunday evening, let me know. I can only accommodate so many people in my home (sorry, I don’t have a “real” place to gather), so I’d just as soon it be through a trusted network for in-person interaction.
It’s taken on an official name, and that’s “Gnomepal” – as inspired by TechCrunch’s Mike Arrington. It’s a mashup between my ol’ nickname and the platform of choice for this particular project… I guess it’s fitting? We’re going to be using Gnomepal.org for live dogfooding, so every time you load ‘er up – you’re going to see something different. Expect falling rocks for a while. :)
I have Lockergnome.org, Lockergnome.net, and Lockergnome.com – and each may play a role in all of this. If I were to map it out right now, I’d say that “.com” would become an active deployment of the latest working version of the install profile. I’d relegate “.net” for hosted communities and custom domains. I’d use “.org” for the non-profit arm of this thing. Of course, everything is subject to change – that’s the nature of software and development.
We already have an IRC room open at irc.freenode.net in #gnomepal (just for a regular flow of backchannel chatting). This is a massive undertaking, I understand – but I see such an overwhelming need for it (personally and professionally). There’s a lot of variables at play, and many chances of losing the user in this experience – and I’m trying to bring everybody closer. This is a world full of great software, great people, great experiences, great platforms. We have to imagine big, because that’s the only way we’ll be able to achieve big – but it’s not big enough if it’s not open.
Thoughts? My email is chris@pirillo.com – and I’ll be at the Drupal Co-work on Thursday (and sprinting with other folks this weekend – which is sure to be the first of hundreds). Donations will be funneled through a yet-to-be-set-up non-profit (we already have PayPal).
I hope that the discussion in the greater community is fruitful, if nothing else – and I’m also hoping that holy wars don’t break out over which platform is better, because the best platform is always the one that works well for the person or company that uses it. For my personal blog, I’m quite happy with WordPress (can’t wait for v2.5 to go final). For my communities, it’s going to be Drupal.
My biggest fear isn’t that people will talk about it – it’s a fear that they won’t.
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83 Comments
HubLog
March 29th, 2008
at 1:34am
BookmarksWe’re Taking an Open Direction with Web Communities: Are You In? ~ Chris PirilloHow To Use Native Windows Vsts – Renoise ForumsLinux Vst CompatibilityHow To: Install VST support (fst) in UbuntuStudio (also applicable to other Ubuntus) – Ubuntu ForumsJUCETICE » PortsBBC PodcastsBBC – Radio Labs – Still Playing in the Cloud
da Blog
April 6th, 2008
at 3:07am
in a pretty big way. Lots of things are going well for Drupal these days, including a better-than-ever release of Drupal 6 and a community’s who only major problem is handling the exponentially rapid growth. Last week, tech celebrity Chris Pirilloannounceda project called Gnomepal where he encouraged developers and users to use Drupal as a core for a community platform. It’s just another reason why I think Drupal is the web framework of the future and that I hope I
Aaron Johnson – Now with 50% less caffeine!
April 4th, 2008
at 9:50am
) Looks Good Works Well Bill has been reviewing a number of UI anti-patterns on his blog recently, he’s covered some really good stuff. (categories: ui interface javascript design usability )We’re Taking an Open Direction with Web Communities: Are You In? ~ Chris PirilloQuote: “I don’t want a social network, I want a socially *RELEVANT* network (both on-site and beyond). I don’t want a community platform, I want a participation platform where members are rewarded and ranked appropriately
IT trends by 渡辺翔太
March 31st, 2008
at 5:20am
Chris Pirillo〔Gnormdexのオーガナイザーなどで知られる〕は新しい大規模なオープンソースのCMSプロジェクトを発表した。これはウェブサイトから利用できるツールを「ギークでなくても使えるようにする」のが目的だという。（上にPirilloのビデオによる発表を掲載した）
blackrimglasses.com
April 9th, 2008
at 3:34am
My name is Ethan Kaplan and I support this initiative. [From Chris Pirillo of Lockergnome announces Drupal-powered Community Participation Platform, hackfest in Seattle | B. Mann Consulting] – # I’m in actually. WBR too. [FromWe’re Taking an Open Direction with Web Communities: Are You In? ~ Chris Pirillo] – # “Otherwise we’re the old guys gloaming onto something that isn’t really ours, and I find that repellent” – REM on new technology. Smart guys. [From A 21st Century Group | Video | MTV News RAW: R.E.M. ‘Accelerate’ | MTV
Awakened Voice
March 29th, 2008
at 2:07am
ll try to phone in a report on my Utterz channel and maybe upload a picture or two there. I’m also bringing video and audio capture tools. One topic of discussion that I hope to engage in revolves around Chris Pirillo’sOpen Source Community initiative. Chris plans to build on Drupal core in order to create a more user friendly implementation process for the platform. I think this is a great idea but it should not create a fork in the road that forces people to choose between Drupal A and Drupal B
Kevin Porter’s Blog
March 30th, 2008
at 3:05am
idea behind it is to have an open-standard social networking site, unlike Facebook and MySpace. It’s basically Open Source for the web. I seriously recommend taking a look at Chris’s video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=ha5EE8ilvSY or his blog post:http://chris.pirillo.com/2008/03/26/were-taking-an-open-direction-with-web-communities-are-you-in/. Alright, that’s it for now.
Barry Parr
March 31st, 2008
at 9:31pm
Bloggers already have access to some excellent tools for content management, but are falling behind in community-building. That’s why I’m excited by Chris Pirillo’s announcement that he wants to buildan installation of Drupal that is optimized for social media. Even if you’re a big media company, or never use Drupal, this project could affect the way you run your site. I dont want a social network, I want a socially *RELEVANT* network (both on-site and beyond). I dont want a community platform, I want a
efeefe | agregador pessoal
May 13th, 2008
at 8:35pm
We’re Taking an Open Direction with Web Communities: Are You In? ~ Chris Pirillomanderlbot The Chatterbot Collection ~ Official Site
Bwana.org
April 2nd, 2008
at 9:20pm
This is a response/feedback toChris Pirillo’s blog postsurrounding a huge idea surrounding web communities. Please read his blog post in its entirety prior to reading this one so you will understand the context. Enjoy. Let me just say, I applaud this effort and believe you are on to something here. Here
clock — watching time, the only true currency — A journal from John B. Roberts
April 13th, 2008
at 4:38am
announcementof Gnomepal. I’m trying to think of a company where its content management system is a sustainable competitive advantage. I’ve been involved in the building (and rebuilding) of several, and it’
52signals
October 16th, 2008
at 2:30am
where users can create their [individual] community instead of simply being a part of one. Am I close…even a little? Drupal.org 45 Drupal Websites and more information Smashing Magazine posts Drupal resources for the beginnerVideo: Chris Pirillo on building a new kind of community with Drupal
David Black
March 31st, 2008
at 2:34am
We’re Taking an Open Direction with Web Communities: Are You In? ~ Chris Pirillo
Adam Kalsey
April 6th, 2008
at 6:31am
Chris Pirillo outlines somethoughts on a web community platformI don’t want a social network, I want a socially RELEVANT network (both on-site and beyond). I don’t want a community platform, I want a participation platform where members are rewarded and ranked appropriately. I don’t want a place where
B. Mann Consulting | Vancouver blogger, entrepreneur, and technologist
April 3rd, 2008
at 12:23am
David Crow in Toronto picks up the community platform meme and lists some other tools / platforms available in response toChris Pirillo’s announcementregarding the building of Gnomepal on Drupal. I already commented on Chris’ initiative here, but here are some comments I made on David Crow’s post: Now, which of those listed platforms have portable data? Which of them are a suitable platform for
instantwebmeetings.com - Video Conference, Collaboration, E Learning, Video Collaboration, Video Meeting, Unified Communications — Internet Video conference & Collaboration from instantwebmeetings.com - Austria & India - Video Conference, Collab
March 29th, 2008
at 10:40am
has announced
EdTech from the Valley
March 30th, 2008
at 8:37am
Chris Pirillo, who has made his name through his work on Tech TV and on his web site Lockergnome.com, has announced that he wants to support the development of an open source Content Management System. (CMS)Chris wants to ‘de-geekify’ the process of managing aCMS and make it easier for individuals and groups to set up their own CMS the way they want it with individual modules that will allow: chat rooms, forums, video, podcasts, blogs, wikis, pages, etc. This way, a school or other organization could
Planet Drupal | drupal.org
April 2nd, 2008
at 11:34pm
David Crow in Toronto picks up the community platform meme and lists some other tools / platforms available in response toChris Pirillo’s announcementregarding the building of Gnomepal on Drupal. I already commented on Chris’ initiative here, but here are some comments I made on David Crow’s post:
Boycott Novell
March 29th, 2008
at 5:52pm
Open Source Software within the European Commission – a co-ordinated strategy Major Web Sites Hit With Growing Web Attack Attackers booby-trap searches at top Web sites Managed Services: Built On Open Source?We’re Taking an Open Direction with Web Communities: Are You In?Permalink Leave Your Comment Send this to a friend View as PDF
David Crow - Toronto entrepreneur, community advocate, user experience evangelist and startup guy
April 2nd, 2008
at 3:38pm
But it’s when Chris talks about the functionality and participation and discovery that I start to think about the potential and needs. I don’t want a social network, I want a socially *RELEVANT*network(both on-site and beyond). I don’t want a community platform, I want a participation platform where members are rewarded and ranked appropriately. I don’t want a place where people can just blog, because I
sysblogd
May 12th, 2008
at 5:53pm
andread moreand more or more. I’m not quite sure, yet, what I think of it, but putting the “Can it really be realised/implemented?” question aside, his idea really sounds stamin! I’ll definitely will have an eye on it and would love to see those ideas
League of Technical Voters | Changing the World Through Transparent Communication
April 3rd, 2008
at 3:20pm
http://chris.pirillo.com/2008/03/26/were-taking-an-open-direction-with-w...
Raven Dizzle
March 26th, 2008
at 4:06am
This is totally redundant to the post itself, as I haven’t read it YET.
However, congratulations on coming up with the perfect name for it! And about 33489 other perfect names! lol.
Kidguru
March 26th, 2008
at 4:11am
Awsome post chris, lol i first saw this on twitter and loved it and how your pushing to want more than a community but a participation one at that and how detailed the post is , is amazing long blog but welll worth it im sure to check out all the links thanks for the post chris highly appreciated
KidGuru
Khürt Williams
March 26th, 2008
at 5:22am
Wow! There is quite a bit of thinking going on this post. I admit to not reading it all the way through. My mind kept racing ahead to the possibilities and drifting off into “what if”. So how can I help?
Matt
March 26th, 2008
at 5:22am
Great post and call to arms Chris! I will definitely be an involved community member with this. The need is there and I think that developers will be there to help out.
Canadaguy
March 26th, 2008
at 5:24am
Nice job chris, i really think your on to something here. Hopefully your plans will be successful as this will be a big improvement for the community, like you said
Kyle_vdk
March 26th, 2008
at 5:29am
Oh wow, I always knew that this technology was available, but to see it put into words is even more amazing. The optimization of blogging, and online community could be amazing. What would be nice is things like System Links. One blog, you hover over a person’s avatar, and It shows their information, and you Click it, it shows some more information, EVEN their recent blog posts within other blogging communities. I think this would be very useful, to see what type of blogs users like to take part of. I have to say, this is the only blog I pretty much take part of.
But the System Links would be so useful. One blog linked to another, and they do not have to physically connect, there could be a database with all the domain names that use the blog, and one System just adds the extension to the domain, which would lead to the users profile on another blog. Basically an index of blogs that the users has posted on, in their blog profile.
I really like the style you right this, it makes the community think a lot, of what they have now, and what they SHOULD be able to have with all this technology readily available. I am glad that somebody has dedicated themselves to follow their dream, you have Chris, you are following what you think the future of blogging should be. In the future, people are going to praise you, and all the other people who helped get this all together.
Also with this blogging method, and options, there should be an administrator plugins option, where the community at large, can contribute to their blog by making plugins, features, which they want to blog to use, or a suggestions system, that can index all the suggestions from just their tags, their titles, etc. The system of blogging would be revolutionized, it would draw more people in because of its simplicity, and at the same time it will be complicated.
Technology these days is so advanced, but it is not always put to use, and this will put a lot of new technology, and skills to use.
That is my view for blogging :)
~Kyle_vdk
Intrepid
March 26th, 2008
at 7:49am
Wow, what a blog. If only more and more developers had this passion for the user.
I wish I could help in more ways than just funding and throwing ideas at you, but I’m not knowledgeable enough on much of anything that you mentioned. Web design, coding, hosting, anything. =P
I will, however, keep track of this and help fund as much as I can. If you do blog the development or Drupal Wiki it, please link to it as soon as possible.
Boris Mann
March 26th, 2008
at 8:39am
This is awesome news, Chris. I can’t attend the whole hack fest, but I will endeavour to make it down on Sunday.
Cloning or extending the FriendFeed API would probably be interesting…
Hmmm, so much to think about. And…you didn’t name it! What’s it called? Is it a Lockergnome distro?
GranitW
March 26th, 2008
at 10:01am
You make it seem like a community can just be built from tools and software. There’s a reason I don’t like going to places like MySpace, Pownce, or even Yahoo. Don’t follow their path; make a new one. Don’t base it on features and technology; base it on users and contributers.
FearedBliss
March 26th, 2008
at 12:09pm
I totally agree with this Chris. I’m thinking of going back into PHP since you said that the modules will be coded in that language. I might be able to contribute something to the community by learning PHP.
Julie
March 26th, 2008
at 12:15pm
I’m in—This sounds like a great opportunity.
Roland Tanglao
March 26th, 2008
at 12:49pm
go chris go! this is fantastic! have fun on the weekend! wish i could make it!
Pat Hawks
March 26th, 2008
at 1:59pm
Preach it, brother-man!
Count me as a vote in the “yes, please!” column
Martin S.
March 26th, 2008
at 6:05pm
It shouldn’t take too long before you get something going. I’ve been using Drupal for a year now and I have to say the Drupal community is strong and open for sure.
This must be what you we’re talking about when you said you liked to dream about things all the time.
Nonetheless, it’s good to have people jumping into the “fray” and get other people moving towards building a strong community to make things easily accessible for everyone.
Good luck with the project as I’m sure it will work as planned.
Eric Atkins
March 26th, 2008
at 6:51pm
Drupal and WordPress user here. I totally agree.
If all you want is a blog, WordPress wins. If you want a community, Drupal wins.
tm~creative » Blog Archive » architecting for collaboration
March 27th, 2008
at 4:40am
[...] The power of open to build community sites versus social networks. Which open do you hunger for and where would you shine? Which would attract more outside users? Read more… [...]
charles
March 27th, 2008
at 5:16am
I am interested in getting in on this idea, We run a network which is mostly powered by opensource and have used many of the different platforms. If you would like some help with this build drop me a line and let me know what i can do to help out in making this a reality or atlease attempt to make it a reality.
Steve Elbows
March 27th, 2008
at 5:22am
This is an initiative I find most exciting. There’s so much I want to say about it that I dont know where to start. Every week it seems like a new service pops up that I would like to integrate into my online life, but I am put off by walled gardens, fragmentation, relatively poor interoperability, or other limitations that often stem from the business model of those providing the service. opensource, opensocial, microformats and various other development, all seem to have the potential to take things to the next level. I want to see a web where people can pick and choose their service providers, without having to worry about fragmentation or their data being locked up by that company. I am fascinated by ways in which communities, people, conversations and relationships can exist in a consistent and non-fragmented way across an unlimited number of web locations.
I think drupal is a good starting point, and if even half of your ideas come to fruition, then the future’s looking rather bright. Im just in the process of brushing up my drupal & php skills, and quitting my day job, so I dearly hope to be able to help in some small way in future.
Jordan Satok
March 27th, 2008
at 5:51am
Chris,
This is defiantly one of your best videos. What I would like to see in a “community cms” is the following:
-Easy sign up for geeks as well as for not technical people
-The ability to customize the sign up varying the information collected, and how it is further used.
-Control over registration emails, forgot your pass emails, and notifications
-Superb scalability, you start with a community of 50 and overnight become a community of 500, the “community cms” should be able to hand not only this influx, but be able to optimize everything based on your server resources (like when your setting it up, you can enter in basic server info at the same time, and maybe it can read loads off the server)
-Regardless of the skill of the community starter, they should be able to set it up. No need for a developer to setup the community for you, any person, with access to a computer should be able to do it.
-Rather then just having your typical community home page, and personal profiles, there needs to be a link between the two, making you more a member of the community then a user of the site.
-Theming should not be the way it is now, were you must have a designer create your theme, after all, its your site, you want the header to be blue, thats an option, you want the posts to be in size 14 font, thats also an option, you want your text aligned to the right, thats an option to. I think designs should become modular, were the user can design “parts” and then assemble the parts for each page, the way comments look, the number of posts per page, why make it a textual option, make it a visual option, were the admin can drag 5 post “parts” to the home page design, and thats the number of posts there.
I hope this helps, I am interested in seeing the further development of this project and I am very interested!
Nick Vidal
March 27th, 2008
at 6:26am
We’re taking an open direction with web communities: are you in?
Yes, Nick iss im! ;)
Hi Chris, I developed ISS (Instant Syndicating Standards), a set of open standards that enables people to discover and syndicate information within their social network. I think it fits well with your vision. I have started to implement it on Drupal as well, and I also want to implement it for Wordpress. I would love to hear your comments.
Best regards,
Nick Vidal
Pirillo Starts Large Scale Community CMS Project
March 27th, 2008
at 6:34am
[...] Pirillo has announced a new, large scale open source CMS project that aims to “de-geekify” website tools [...]
Chris Osborne
March 27th, 2008
at 6:42am
Loving the passion and the vision! (I watched the video – epic!)
Don’t know if there’s some mileage in talking to the FastCompany guys, but as I’m sure you know they’ve launched their new community-centric site using drupal (see Edward Sussman’s note on this http://www.fastcompany.com/node/665030). They’ve apparently built a big drupal team to support and develop the platform, and to feed back into the drupal community/effort (and they are looking at how they can push out/partner around the platfrom that they’ve developed, but are probably thinking more about working with other media partners as opposed to a broader play). And Scoble’s obviously there now, so he can shout about it if they do get involved (I like the irony of a former Microsoft guy working at a site that’s at the cutting edge of open source!).
There are definitely a sea of (proprietary) white-label community platforms out there, and one of, for and by the community would be a welcome part of the mix. Jeremiah Owyang is doing a great job tracking this space (here’s his living document on this http://tinyurl.com/2mwa6g on his web strategist blog, http://www.web-strategist.com/blog).
Good luck with it. Not sure how I can help (not a hacker, not since I had a ZX Spectrum – meaning to learn though), but will spread the word!
Rob Safuto
March 27th, 2008
at 7:32am
I’m glad to see that you are stepping up to support this kind of development for Drupal. Drupal is a fantastic platform. It is true that the system is too complicated for basic web users to start from scratch on.
For those who want to get a more detailed look at Drupal, you are welcome to check out the free Drupal screencasts that I have been producing for the past year. They are quite detailed and cover some really important topics.
http://learn.awakenedvoice.com/tag/drupal/
Chuck
March 27th, 2008
at 8:38am
Awesome idea. I tried to build a community site with Drupal a year or so ago, but the task became overwhelming since I’m not a developer. It became obvious that the power of the framework is there, but it is still too “geeky” and hard to put together without programming skill. I wound up using a rival open source CMS that comes out of the box much easier and much more attractive. I’m still in love with the idea of Drupal though, as it’s much more powerful…… and it could take over the CMS world as soon as someone makes it more user friendly. Good luck, I’ll be eagerly following your project.
Stephanie Leary
March 27th, 2008
at 8:44am
Sign me up!
www.teletubis.info » Blog Archive » Pirillo Starts Large Scale Community CMS Project
March 27th, 2008
at 9:05am
[...] Pirillo has announced a new, large scale open source CMS project that aims to “de-geekify” website tools [...]
Platform Pub » Chris Pirillo Wants to Build an Open Source De-Geekified Install Profile on Drupal
March 27th, 2008
at 9:28am
[...] selections from Chris Pirillo’s post/videoblog [...]
ChunX
March 27th, 2008
at 11:05am
This will be huge. All hail Chris.
Chris, this is the time to embrace open source technology. You’ve got the man power with this community. It’s all about leveraging the community and giving back to the community with the users in mind!
Rick
March 27th, 2008
at 12:22pm
Why download/install? Why not a platform, aka hosted, and use Web Services?
Bram Wessel
March 27th, 2008
at 12:40pm
This is welcome to those of use who have attempted to use Drupal to get community sites off the ground and hit the implementation wall you describe. It’s validating that you see the potential I have long seen in Drupal.
Chris, I’m a SeaDUG member and I’ll be at today’s co-work offering to help in whatever way I can.
Backlin
March 27th, 2008
at 1:20pm
Chris, you are a genius! If I didn’t transfer all of my money in my Paypal account back to my bank account, I would donate to this in a heartbeat!
ET
March 27th, 2008
at 1:38pm
Oh this sounds good! You can count me in on this one in some way, shape, or form!!
TechCrunch Japanese アーカイブ » Chris Pirillo、オープンソースの大規模なコンテンツ・マネジメント・システムのプロジェクトを開始
March 27th, 2008
at 4:36pm
[...] Chris Pirillo〔Gnormdexのオーガナイザーなどで知られる〕は新しい大規模なオープンソースのCMSプロジェクトを発表した。これはウェブサイトから利用できるツールを「ギークでなくても使えるようにする」のが目的だという。（上にPirilloのビデオによる発表を掲載した） [...]
GeekBrief.TV | Video Podcast » Archive » GBTV #335 | GeekBrief.TV
March 27th, 2008
at 5:41pm
[...] spent most of Brief 335 highlighting an open source project proposed by Chris Pirillo. I’m in. I want to do whatever I can to help make his vision happen. It’s a great, and [...]
Pirillo Starts Large Scale Community CMS Project | Slackerology
March 27th, 2008
at 6:37pm
[...] Pirillo has announced a new, large scale open source CMS project that aims to “de-geekify” website tools [...]
hichez
March 27th, 2008
at 7:42pm
Wow! you are very passionate about this topic. If you can actually pull this off I will be supporting you 100%. I mean the number one thing I want to do is is customization to the max.
I mean I want to able to use full fledged html not some crippled version of Css and have to be able to learn a whole bunch of different classes I have to memorize. If you seriously can pull this off it would be amazing.
Don’t forget that community is the key. The community knows what they want. So don’t try to keep your plans secret. I mean you could have this great idea but if know one wants it or use’s it your effort is wasted. Os Ill actually like to see open alpha version.
Drupal-powered community system–Chris Pirillo thinks the time is now, but can the geekiness be culled?
March 27th, 2008
at 8:23pm
[...] We’re Taking an Open Direction with Web Communities: Are You In? ~ Chris Pirillo [...]
Chris Pirillo Releases New Powerful Lifestreaming Module for Drupal | Lifestream Blog
March 27th, 2008
at 9:29pm
[...] I was alerted by reader Robert Safuto about a new Drupal project being started by high profile blogger and Lifecaster Chris Pirillo. Here’s a quote: We’re [...]
Andrew
March 27th, 2008
at 10:59pm
This is great timing — I’ve had this “big idea” for a community site, and I’m knowledgeable of the basics in CSS, PHP, etc. So I came to Drupal for help on executing this big idea, and I was lost. I understood that Drupal could serve as a community building platform, but I had no idea where to start.
It isn’t at all like WordPress, where I had an option to install it in my hosting service control panel, filled out a few form boxes, and clicked install. Boom, I had a blog. And a dashboard to add and manage the content on that blog. I could understand how themes were built out of stylesheets, so I could customize the color palette. The latest themes use widgets, so I could manage modules as easily as drag-and-drop.
Drupal is a totally different animal though — there’s no beginning or end in the site’s copy. There’s no simple language in the site that says “these are examples of the practical applications of Drupal.” It also doesn’t seem to say, “if you want to accomplish this, here’s how Drupal can achieve it for you.” The site’s documentation doesn’t appear to guide you through an application of itself. I don’t see any reason why not — seems the open source project would be better served by making this process easier to adapt for non-developer audiences.
In short, more power to ya. I’ll be following.
Ryan Dempsey
March 28th, 2008
at 12:01am
Boris Mann just told us all about this at a local Drupal group meeting. I’m in bro. This sounds great. Community websites are the whole reason I’m a web developer. But my ideas and vision almost always surpass my technical know how. Drupal helps, but we, the community can make it even better.
Ryan Dempsey
March 28th, 2008
at 12:11am
Oh yeah, btw Chris, can I come? I’m not a wizard or a rockstar. I’m a noob. And you need a noobs perspective.
Doing Drupal With Chris Pirillo « rjdempsey
March 28th, 2008
at 12:23am
[...] Chris Pirillo is now a Drupal evangelist. If you have any interest in open source software or CMS’s or Community websites or Social Networking or all of the above, you need to see this video. [...]
anon
March 28th, 2008
at 12:50am
Drual is horrendously bad for just about everything people try to use it for.
Elias Kai
March 28th, 2008
at 2:10am
I am in for it, soon it will be out there.
You are right better go as open source but still afraid since when it is all connected we will move from a normal social community to a network and like Elias Canetti says it might get broken by the survival factor and fear of spying real time information.
Ruud Welten
March 28th, 2008
at 11:36am
Wow! I love this concept, I’m currently starting to work on an update/redesign of my own site which should contain a blog, flickr pictures, del.icio.us bookmarks and so forth.
But now I think I’ll stop producing all of that code on my own, I will definitely go and use this amazing system and hopefully be able to contribute tot it.
Cheers, Rudi!
Joshua {XP}
March 28th, 2008
at 3:30pm
Hey Chris.
Hopefully It shouldn’t take you too long until or before you get something going or started. I’ve never have used Drupal but i hear its great…maybe i will try it out sometime, and I know that drupal is good since the drupal community is strong.
Now i know when you say your dreaming of big projects…there are going to be true. what could also help Chris is if plan ahead about what your druple needs to have in order to survive. once you get past this part your home free. Anyways Chris, it’s good to see that people jumping into the excitement of drupal and getting other potential helpers and people moving towards building a strong community and strong goal for achievement to make all of what you said and do easily accessible for everyone to see and hear
Good luck Chris with the project and i hope to see up and running someday and work as planned.
Joshua{XP}
:D
Tim Burke
March 28th, 2008
at 5:42pm
I personally think this is a great idea. I’m in, it’ll be a great system for my community. Drupal’s a great system for communities, and this will definitely enhance it.
laaabaseball
March 28th, 2008
at 11:11pm
Hey Chris, I love this idea! I am currently in the process of setting up NUKE’s site http://nuke1.net in Drupal and this is just the kind of thing that our site is looking for. I am using 5 different modules that currently only support half of the stuff I would like to do with it. Thanks for the great ideas, and I hope this fills up to the potential that is can be.
Thanks again
– laaabaseball
AphisOne
March 28th, 2008
at 11:54pm
I’ve been working on a very customizable and powerful content management system for the last year. My view is that of much the same as yours, interoperability of divergent systems. I’ve been developing the core platform to be as minimalistic as possible, yet have the power to handle anything that may be required. The concept is simple, ease of use with the power of a herd of rhinos. With the minimalistic approach power is not consumed when not needed.
Scott Koegler
March 29th, 2008
at 7:39am
I totally agree with this effort, but think that getting all the relationship information will be difficult without either:
- some heavy structured programming in the backend, and some intense manual data entry.
- inclusion of some kind of semantic technology (www.semanticreport.com, http://www.twine.com) that will automate the discovery of the relationships that make up and promote the ‘community’.
There are lots of efforts, some open source and some proprietary, that could/should be included in this effort.
Scott
Thomas Moseler
April 3rd, 2008
at 7:57pm
Man, you frighten me ;) I slowly fear Drupal might not be a system but a sect. I just jumped into the middle of the video and feared sometime you might jump out of the screen and grab me :D
Good thing: I absolutely share your vision. Question: what has Windows given to the world though only striving for profit? Yes, a standard most people could communicate on. Still there were borders between operating systems, be it ideological or technical.
Question 2: what has overcome these borders (no, definitely not Internet Exploiter 6!) Yes, the web. So what you talk about, as I understand it, is to start to give people, who have something to say, the technical means without bothering them. This is a very democratic idea. And just as you say: It can be done. Its up to us to put it up.
Go, go, go.
Lucy
May 21st, 2008
at 7:00am
love this concept
chris
June 9th, 2008
at 8:25am
This is an exciting and wonderfull idea. So what’s the status? I would love to use something like this in the future, to build a community of my own.
Also, have you tought about grassroots funding for this? Like, via chipin ?
And do you realise this free webcommunity software would become a revolution, the wordpress.org to wordpress.com (aka, Ning)
This is awesome
Hooray! Campaign to ‘de-geekify’ Drupal. E-book publishing wrinkles ahead? Opp for .epub? | TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home
June 10th, 2008
at 11:50am
[...] Pirillo is starting a project to address those issues, and I wish him much luck. That said, let’s keep in mind the risks of [...]
Blogroll autodiscovery :: Adam Kalsey
June 14th, 2008
at 12:08am
[...] f$#@ is my market? Sacramento DUG meetup, April 17th Knight Drupal Initiative | groups.drupal.org We’re Taking an Open Direction with Web Communities: Are You In? Activity Stream =?WINDOWS-1252?Q?Todays_Tech-Support_Nightmare_-_Pogue=92s_Posts?= Scaling it up [...]
blackrimglasses.com » 2008 » March
June 18th, 2008
at 5:35pm
[...] in actually. WBR too. [From We’re Taking an Open Direction with Web Communities: Are You In? ~ Chris Pirillo] You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed. –> A [...]
GBTV #0335 (small) | GeekBrief.TV | TechTV Update
June 18th, 2008
at 8:33pm
[...] spent most of Brief 335 highlighting an open source project proposed by Chris Pirillo. I’m in. I want to do whatever I can to help make his vision happen. It’s a great, and [...]
Chris Pirillo - .net magazine
October 19th, 2008
at 5:57am
[...] blog and more without having to touch any code. Chris announced the project, dubbed Gnomepal, in a 2,738-word post and a 47-minute video, and of course he also plans to live stream as many of the project’s efforts as possible.It’s a [...]
Brian
October 20th, 2008
at 8:48am
Grand idea! How can I help?
Chris Pirillo of Lockergnome announces Drupal-powered Community Participation Platform, hackfest in Seattle | IO1
October 22nd, 2008
at 3:24pm
[...] in Seattle Chris Pirillo is picking up the torch first raised by Marc Canter over 4 years ago: open community platforms available for everyone, powered by Drupal. Chris is a long time friend and colleague, and it’s great to see him stepping [...]
Friendster Graphics
May 6th, 2009
at 1:28am
thank you for this usefull informations.. finally i find what i want to know.. thank you so much for this article..