Emily Chang - eHub: Folkstr

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Aug 28, 07
Folkstr
A lightweight social network and micro blogging application built using PHP and MySQL that you can purchase ($30) and install on your own server.

Link: Folkstr

Posted by Emily Chang in Blogs • Development and/or open source • Publishing

Comment(s)

Andrew Mager on August 28, 2007 at 05:49 PM:

It should totally be free. Who pays for software nowadays?

Gary Reid on August 29, 2007 at 01:56 AM:

Thanks for the mention Emily.

@Andrew - I suppose it’s an unusual business model today, charging for something, when our local Tesco lets us shop for free we’ll consider making free :)

Andrew Mager on August 29, 2007 at 07:01 PM:

Very cool. It’s a great looking product Gary.

blabto on August 30, 2007 at 09:23 AM:

And very easy to modify, change, adapt. Loads of potential too.

Brian on August 31, 2007 at 05:52 PM:

I purchased a copy..look forward to implementing it…

Seshu on September 07, 2007 at 01:47 PM:

Excellent product! I’m trying to brainstorm a unique web2.0 concept just so that I can use this product.

gabor on September 20, 2007 at 06:33 PM:

It does not provide “social networking” solution as it claims. There is no user blog, user groups etc. Alicia is free, source code is not encoded, and the group plugin costs less than $50.
Compare this with folkstr prices.

The way commenting goes is a great disappointment - look at orkut scrap and see how logical and ajaxified it is.

The admin cannot add user accounts.

Most sad they have closed down the forums :(

Brian on September 21, 2007 at 01:49 AM:

Totally agree. Bought this thing and am very disappointed at the functionality.

Gary Reid on September 21, 2007 at 01:55 AM:

@gabor don’t you just love anonymous comments that plug competing products ;)

Just to put you right on a couple of points, our forum was closed for two days while we moved it to a different server, it’s still online at the same URL http://folkstr.com/forum/

The whole Folkstr system is built around blogs, every user has a blog, full source code is available, the groups plugin will be available shortly, along with the SMS plugin and all for less than Alicia’s groups plugin

Social networking is about making connections, we never tried to make a product that fits all, Folkstr is meant to help people create active, niche social networks

gabor on September 21, 2007 at 10:55 AM:

Thanks for putting back the forum :)
Link to it has become somewhat obscure :(
Users do not have “blog” the way drupal, alicia [ free + open source ] or phpfox, dzoic [ discount prices almost equals unencoded folkstr ] or blogger services like wordpress, google has.

A particular SNW script may not fit all but SNW has certain criteria like the above mentioned scripts or SNW sites like orkut, facebook etc - folkstr is NOT snw.

Comments are for comparison so that intending buyers can know what are the valid points to compare. I am not repeating the serious drawbacks as that may raise your discomfort more !

Gary Reid on September 21, 2007 at 01:25 PM:

Still anonymous gabor ;) hey your entitled to your opinion, but it’s people connecting that make social networks not blogs or groups or features.

However, every user in Folkstr has a blog, it’s on their profile, they can make posts, people can comment, track back and subscribe with RSS - sounds like a blog to me.

One thing is for sure we didn’t set out to clone facebook or myspace like others have - so it’s good to hear we didn’t - Folkstr is unique and it’s really good people can see the difference.

Don’t worry about making negative comments it doesn’t give me any discomfort, I’m not sure if it was Seth Godin or Don Norman who said

“If some people don’t HATE your product, it’s mediocre.”