Elgg Review

Elgg is an open source social networking platform that was based on developer choice, flexibility and openness, according to the Elgg main website, classic.elgg.org. 

Elgg offers all of the standard social networking features that would be expected from a platform that seeks to compete within the growing online social networking industry.  However Elgg seems to be lacking in terms of number of expandable features and tools available on other platforms that Elgg doesn't appear to have.

Elgg's strength and specialty however is its ability to link together specialized and targeted social networks as modular parts of a larger organization.  Elgg seeks to help organizations not only customize and brand the individual social networks, but it also claims to have the ability to connect together several social networks to create a distributed network of sites, independent of geographical location.  Especially with very large corporations, this is very much a need that is in demand.

Elgg Social Networking Platform

My first impression of Elgg based on the website is that this is a social networking platform that is still in its infant or developmental stages.  The website isn't intuitive or very informative about the product, however if you dig enough you can uncover the features and plugins that are available to users who would like to use this platform as the basis of their social networking website.

Elgg strikes me as another open source solution that is strong on customization and developer flexibility; however it isn't a platform that I would recommend to non-technical users who simply want a platform they can install on their website from a simple setup script and just start using it. 

It can be difficult for social networking platform programmers to appease the whole range of website developers - on the one end there are those who have no desire or need to type a single line of code, and they prefer the WYSIWYG editors that allow them to design the pages in a graphical and dynamic format.  However other developers are programmers and like to ‘tweak' the background PHP in order to customize the platform to suite their specific needs.  Making the code flexible enough for ‘tweaking' while serving the needs of the non-technical user can be very difficult to balance.  Elgg appears to be weighed slightly more toward the programmer's end, as is the case with most open source social networking platforms.

Requirements

Most web applications such as these scripts that need to be installed on your web server have a minimum set of requirements for your hosting service.  In the case of Elgg, the minimum requirements are as follows:

1. PHP compatible
2. Developed for a Linux/Apache web server
3. Must support MySQL
4. Will run on standard web space

As shown by this list, the requirements are not very stringent, and the Elgg platform will run on just about any web space that supports PHP and has a MySQL database available.

Major Features

The Elgg model is extremely flexible, and it is very easy to integrate other tools or widgets into the site.  The Elgg platform is aesthetically pleasing, which is a big plus, and its clean design makes it easy to incorporate the platform for various purposes including education, collaboration, entertainment and other uses. 

Elgg originated as a social networking platform, and this is essentially its core strength - and all of the features and plugins are based on that vision - unlike some software platforms that are a mix of social networking as well as content management software.

The standard features that are initially installed with Elgg include:

•-          Blogging

•-          Forums

•-          File sharing

•-          Podcasting

•-          Full administration controls

•-          Tagging support

•-          Profiles for users

•-          RSS support

•-          Friends/Contacts Lists

•-          Import tools

•-          Multilingual support

•-          Branding and customization available

Most of the standard tools listed above are realistically enough to establish a good social network website, however the features are limited when compared to other similar social networking sites.  Developers who want a bit more functionality on their site, Elgg does offer additional plugins that can be downloaded and installed onto an existing Elgg site.  Installation of plugins is fairly simple.

Modules that Elgg offers as add-ons include:

•-          Broadcast

•-          PHPLIST integration

•-          Profile picture sync

•-          Galleria gallery

•-          Imageflow

•-          Communities list

•-          Profile nagger

•-          River 0.2

•-          Module Manager

•-          Gallery Plugin

This small sample represents only a small part of a list that stretches for pages.  This library of plugins includes both established and debugged code as well as some beta code that is sure to have some bugs in it - however the version is clearly marked, so developers who want better code simply need to avoid the beta software.

Performance

O ur test run of Elgg was fairly simple.  The download of version 0.9.1 was fast and very easy to install and set up on our test web space.  The patches are just as simple to install using script installs.  Our test with five users making use of the system simultaneously established that this software package can manage under somewhat of a load; however it is impossible to test how the system may handle under a very heavy load.  Considering the early stage of development of this software, however, I would have to guess that performance may start to suffer somewhat if traffic levels reach a significant peak.  We did not notice any bugs or issues with the software during the trial run, and we even tested an install of several plugins - all components that we tested worked as expected after install.

Overview

All versions of this software are available for free download from the classic.elgg.org website.  Version 0.9.1 of the core software from early 2008 and 0.7 of the patches from late 2007 are available for immediate free download. 

Elgg is popular among the educational community for its flexibility of use and easy management.  The Elgg website offers testimony from the University of Brighton which apparently runs an Elgg social networking website consisting of 36,000 users, which is a significant user base.  This signifies that the Elgg platform can probably handle a significant load.  The University of Brighton utilizes the Elgg platform for both coursework and for students to keep in touch in an online social community.  This, of course, is what online social networking is all about.