Many brands often use social networking software on their websites to share and promote their ideas, products or interests. BuddyPress which is an open source social networking software can be installed as a plugin on WordPress to create a private social platform mainly as a communication tool. It is free of cost and allows users to customize their profiles and invite people that have similar interests. The internal functional elements of the WordPress engine such as plugins, themes and widgets can be inherited and extended by BuddyPress.
Some of the features of BuddyPress are:
- Free of cost.
- Single Sign On(SSO) support offered through Facebook, Twitter and LDAP Open ID using plugins.
- Access control at Users levels and Groups.
- Wiki plugin available.
- Forum,Blog and Media sharing options available for free.
- Event Calendar, Social Grouping and Tagging plugins available at no extra cost.
- Can be customized based on WordPress theme and plugin architecture.
SocialEngine is yet another social networking service platform that lets its users create beautiful online communities that they can customize according to their needs. Although SocialEngine is not a free social software it comes with variouscustomization options that can help brands and individuals personalize their pages with a wide range of features and plugins. There are currently two types of platforms that the company has. SocialEngine PHP, which is a white label social networking platform and SocialEngine Cloud,a SaaS hosted version lets people create community websites for social networking purposes.
Some of the features of SocialEngine are:
- 30 days free trial otherwise costs from$299 to $669 with all options.
- Single Sign On (SSO) support offered only through Facebook yet.
- Access control at Users levels, Groups and Pages.
- Wiki plugin not available.
- Forum, Blog and Media sharing options available via plugin for $40.
- Event calendar, Social Grouping and Tagging plugins available for $40.
- Can be customized based on a range of templates and plugins available from third party sources, however most of them are paid.
Both BuddyPress and SocialEngine are designed to help businesses and individuals build their own private social communities to exchange thoughts, visuals and common interests just like a social networking site but in a more sophisticated way.You not onlycan customize your own profile but also personalize the entire community network that you create. BuddyPress has a number of basic features for WordPress users and is also free of cost while SocialEngine that comes for a price has amazing external features that provide users modular extendibility and added customize options. All in all both these social software help take the social community networking to a whole new level.
