Social Defibrillator
December 21, 2006 Posted by Al Castle

trackback Categories: PRWeb, Squirrels, Web Design & Dev, gnash-teeth

I was reading Dave Winers blog and came across a post mentioning Marc Canter. The name rung a bell, after doing a quick Google search I recall him. He was the boisterous, supercilious gent at the 2006 Gnomedex PRWeb sponsored, where he also ungraciously cut in front of me at the bar.

I was following some links from Scobol and Marcs own blog about what he describes as “MySpace in a Box” - People Aggregator. (See http://www.peopleaggregator.net or http://peepagg.net.) I’ve never cared for myspace and despite it’s success and wide adoption by the youth and businesses who cater to them I have no inclination to join the mayhem.

Upon looking deeper, the myspace in a box is a poor analogy in that it doesn’t seem to convey the full purpose of the application. Aside from the business model which is essentially free for non-commercial and open-source - PeopleAggregator is looking for interoperability, extensibility and the kitchen sink. By providing users software to easily and inexpensively deploy (LAMP) their own social network site that can be integrated with other web apps or sites.

It looks like it’s a work in progress, the sign-up requires that I agree to the EULA which isn’t linked to anywhere - I can’t seem to find it. So simply disable you’re javascript during submittal as he’s not fully validating the form. After logging in you’re presented with some standard fare you’d expect with any CMS or portal account, although the layout has something to be desired I’m sure they/he is working on it.

It may be worth watching as these things have a habit of taking off. In general the premise of the idea sounds cool, though I’m not sure we need anymore “social networking” sites - there seems to be far too many as is.

I don’t have time or the interest for a more in-depth review, but I’m sure you can find others.