Minnov8

Showcasing Minnesota Technology Innovation

CommunityEngine: Open Source Social Network Application

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Earlier this summer, Bruno Bornsztein released the code behind his niché social-networking sites Curbly, Uncooped as an open-source project called: CommunityEngine.

CommunityEngine is a complete, white-label social network app wrapped up as a Ruby on Rails plugin making it easy to integrate forums, blogs, and user profiles into an existing web application or a stand-alone application. Like many weblog engines, the look and feel of each CommunityEngine can be completely customized.

“I envision somebody doing a theme that makes [CommunityEngine] act more like a social network, a theme that makes it act more like a blog, a theme that makes it act more like a group blog, or a newspaper. So you can pick and choose.” – Bruno Bornsztein

One of the first community contributions to the CommunityEngine code was l18n internationalization support, promptly encouraging a number of non-US-based CommunityEngine-based sites.

“The biggest benefit [to open-sourcing CommunityEngine] is making the code-base stronger…I can now launch a Curbly site in Spanish. I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time.” – Bruno Bornsztein

For more about CommunityEngine listen to my podcast conversation with Bruno.

Zanby.com Relaunched: Groups for Groups

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After 2 years in development Zanby.com has relaunched with a different take on a community site. Rather than focusing on the individual profile with groups as an extension (how I think of Facebook). Zanby reverses it by putting groups at the core and extending them into a “group family” – a network of groups.

The simple example of this is a national professional organization with local chapters, or an organization with franchisees. Within Zanby, all those groups can communicate with each other while maintaining their distinct identity.

TheUptake.org, is moving their entire site off WordPress and onto a white-labeled Zanby to take advantage of all the social aspects of the platform.

Tumblon.com – Parenting Site Focused on Child Development

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Tumblon.com – the new project from Jonathan Dahl of Hopkins-based web application development shop Slantwise Design – quietly opened it’s doors earlier this month. Unlike other parenting-oriented websites or general-purpose weblog engines, Tumblon focuses on child development milestones as the structure for sharing.

…  [Read More…]

DJ Edna – The Open Source Music and Art Catalog Engine

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logo.gifOne of the persistent issues with selling creative works digitally is the need for a middle man to handle the transaction. Engaging with these middle men – whether MySpace, iTunes, SnoCap, or another vendor – often comes at the cost of loss of rights or increase in fees for the artist. DJ Edna, the latest project from Thomas Bohmbach, is an open-source framework designed to make managing and selling digital works easy while allowing the artist to maintain full control over their work.

“Independent artists, who have a geek friend, could install [DJ Edna] on an extra computer in their basement, and run it that way, with no fees. ” – Thomas Bohambach, founder, DJ Edna.    

Full control means, DJ Edna will support any licensing or pricing structure the artist wants to release their work under. Plus, like any polite open-source project, DJ Edna is easily customizable for integration into WordPress, Gallery, and other projects.DJ Edna is currently behind The Skullcranes and Spirit of Salt. For those interested in using DJ Edna for their creative catalog, there’s a DJ Edna wiki with installation instructions in addition, Thomas provides set up, consulting, and hosting services.For more on DJ Edna, listen to my podcast interview with Thomas [mp3]

Podcast: Download (31.7MB)

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