How To Create A Social Network
How To Create A Social Network – Part 1
Create A Social Network
A social network is a social structure made of nodes (which are generally individuals or organizations) that are tied by one or more specific types of relations, such as financial exchange, friendship, hate, trade, web links, or airline routes. – Wikipedia
Needed Skills
To create a social network it is not required that you be a software developer although that would help. The main thing you will need is a basic understanding of how to create a website. If you are completely new to website creation then you will probably want to at least pick up the basics before continuing. There are tools available to create a social network without any programming experience but these tools can be limiting in some respects.
Standard Features
Before you set off to create the next Myspace or Facebook you will need to understand some of the standard features associated with a social networking website. Below is a quick intro into the core components needed to create a social network.
• Content Management
• User Management
• Profile Management
• Relationship Management
• Messaging/Communication Management
These features in some form are an essential part of any social network. When exploring how to create a social network you will always want to refer back to this list of standard features to ensure your website will have all the needed components to be a successful social network.
Content Management
Content management is a set of processes and technologies that support the evolutionary life cycle of digital content. Digital content may take the form of text, such as documents, multimedia files, such as audio or video files, or any other file type which follows a content life-cycle which requires managing.
User Management
User management involves an integrated system of business processes, policies and technologies that enable website administrators to control access to their critical application resources while protecting confidential personal and business information from unauthorized access.
Profile Management
Profile management allows users of a website to personalize their online experience by organizing their content preferences, relationships/friendships, and messages in a single location. Profiles created through profile management act as an external facing identity of the user. Reputation and privacy management are also tightly coupled with profile management.
Relationship Management
Relationship management is the process of building and maintaining the relationships between users, groups, communities and content. The most recognized example of relationship management is the ability to add/remove friends within a social network. Other forms of relationship management would be the relationships between a user and the content created by that user.
Messaging/Communication Management
Messaging and Communication Management involves the processes by which users of a social network communicate with one another. Typical methods for communication include private messaging, group messaging, forums, content commenting and feedback.
Next Steps…
In the next part of this series I will compare and contrast currently available options for creating your own social network. Until then you may want to review my discussion on how to create a website so that you will be familiar with the basics of setting up a website.