Challenged by code?

Yesterday’s post highlighted resources on the web for the uber-geek coder delighting in applets, widgets and mashups by the dozen. But what if you prefer a safe swimming pool to the ocean deeps? What happens if the ends rather the means are what take your fancy? If building the networks and the community are your thing, not tweaking code for bug eradication?

One of the beauties of social networking and Web 2.0 technologies is the infinite array of options available to anyone who chooses to participate. Being a gourmet is fine; you don’t need to be a Cordon Bleu chef to appreciate fine food. Being a glutton, of course, is entirely your own option.

Open Source and Web 2.0; they go together like ham and eggs or fish and chips. With coders sharing snippets, API’s and other arcana, it isn’t surprising to find applications and scripts that emulate the capabilities of many of the popular Web 2.0 sites.

Fancy setting up your own space, a la MySpace? PhpIzabi is one of the best known Open Source options. Free not only as in speech but also as in beer. Now undergoing its eight iteration, codenamed “Alicia” – the demo is impressive.

Another prospective contender is Mugshot. This comes from Red Hat, known more for its Linux distribution. Still under development and accessible by invitation only, but the site looks intriguing.

Other notable options include Aroundme and PHPFox. PHPFox incidentally, is Free Software but not free software – you have to pay for it.

There are also various commercial versions, including those created through elance, as well as a number of software developers, with prices ranging from $30 to $280. Some of these appear to have a number of installations, but I’m really not able to recommend any particular variant. If you’re still interested, just google “Myspace clone script”, and you’ll find them all.

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Open Source Software
Web 2.0
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