TechAgility

I have now been blogging since June 2005 and back around the middle of the year I started realising that my original blog at geekswithblogs.net/wallabyfan had got to the point where it was attracting 8,000 - 10,000 hits a month, I also started reading reports that advertising via web was really taking off and that it was possible to earn something of an income from either a Blog or a Web Site, and so from that I started looking at possibilities.

Don’t get me wrong, geekswithblogs.net is a really good and a great place to get started, but the thing is that they are in control and there is no real avenue to add your own advertising if that’s the way you want to go.  

Which blogging software to use?

So the first thing I did was to research whether to build on WordPress or MovableType ? so you probably find the following links useful:
http://www.millennialgrowth.com/2007/08/10/new-to-blogging-heres-what-ive-learned
http://mashable.com/2007/08/15/movable-type-wordpress
http://mashable.com/2007/08/16/wordpress-god300-tools-for-running-your-wordpress-blog

Great Chart – comparing Blogging Software
http://asymptomatic.net/blogbreakdown.htm

Great links comparing Blog platforms
http://sachistudio.com/2007/03/17/comparing-blog-platforms

WordPress Admin Demo (see what it looks like from the Admin’s perspective)
http://www.opensourcecms.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2143

WordPress and MovableType User Demo’s
http://demos.vortexhost.com/wordpress/
http://www.movabletype.com/blog/2007/07/mt4-time-to-give-it-a-try.html
http://www.movabletype4.org
http://www.webpronews.com/expertarticles/2006/03/10/best-movabletype-plugins
http://www.staggernation.com/mtplugins/BigPAPI

Which Host?

So that’s the choice of blogging tool taken care of, so as far as a Hosting company went, after it was all said and done I found the deal at www.onyxservers.com too good to pass up…

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So by copying some of the more popular articles from my old blog by using Windows Live Writer (best blogging tool by a long way) I was able to quickly have a base to start with and now after only 2 months I’m starting to see the traffic already reach 3 - 4,000 a month. After that you need to start looking at making the links work? but that’s a story for another article?  ;-))

written by dcaddick

I have been looking a bit deeper at the blogging side of things and investigating if it’s worth getting a bit more serious, as well as having some great ideas about creating a Social Network, so based on this I have run up quite a few virtual Servers and installed DNN (DotNetNuke), Community Server, Movabletype and Wordpress, amongst others, both in Windows and Linux flavours and I have to state that from my pitiful level of Linux knowledge creating a LAMP server is not that easy.

LAMP for the uninitiated is Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP/Perl and it was typically the PHP/Perl bit that usually frustrated me.

Anyway, so I have been doing quite a bit of research on the idea of how hard it is to create this and came across these great resources if you’re considering trying the same thing?

And there is also this huge chart at Techcrunch to start you off:
http://www.techcrunch.com/wp-content/white_label_social_networking_solutions_chart2.html

List of “White Label” (Applications you can Rebrand) Social Networking Platforms

Social Networking goes mainstream
I was recently asked by a buddy to name off some social networking platforms that could be branded or changed as needed (that’s where that term ‘white label’ has come from). It’s somewhat relevant as Om Malik has now asked a rhetorical question if Social Network tools are just a feature of website. Overtime, like blogs, these will ‘normalize’.

What is “White Label” Software?
This is software you can brand and integrate tightly into your existing domain. The user experience should be near seamless, therefore any company can have their own MySpace. Kindly do not submit Social Networking tools that don’t meet this criteria, as the list can extend to hundreds if not thousands of companies.

The List
Here’s a list of Social Networking platforms, or suites that you could take and rebrand, if you know of any others, please leave a comment (many of the following are from those that left comments, like Gideon who left quite a few links). Not sorted in any particular order:

BlogTronix
I met Vassil, the CEO, I think it has a chance of giving Sharepoint a run for it’s money given it’s Intranet type features

Sharepoint
Microsoft’s collaboration suite is getting social networking tools for it’s 2007 version, I’m waiting for Microsoft to call me to do a demo.

Five Across
SF company just acquired by Cisco

Community Server
I was looking at this while at a previous role, this is what the famous Channel 9 was built on, as well as Dell 1to1 and Xbox

more at source….

written by dcaddick