Purple Hazard

Ning created alot of buzz and negative comments due to their sudden switch from a free to premium service. I also had a Ning network, but fortunately never paid much attention to it, rather focusing on other network applications. Some of you weren’t as lucky as me and spent hundreds of hours changing and growing your Ning driven network. Those of you unable to pay for the premium service lost all your users, but possibly still stay in contact with them.

Many of you are now looking for a great alternative. Below I have four free and easy to use Ning Alternatives.

1. BuddyPress:

BuddyPress is a free WordPress plugin which is very easy to setup and modify with available themes and plugins. You will need your own self-hosted WordPress blog to activate BuddyPress.

My BuddyPress Sites : http://livingwordpress.com  (Blogging Social Network and Free Hosting.)http://rugbyshout.com (Rugby Social Network)

2. Elgg:

Elgg is a standalone free social networking script. Setup is easy and they have a great community providing free themes and plugins. You will also need your own hosting account to set it up or you can join the premium service.

3. Spruz

Spruz is the service which I find most similar to Ning. You simply fill out a few fields and you have a social network hosted by them. It’s free and easy to setup and provide plenty of options.

See my Spruz test – http://ayoba.spruz.com

4. Yuku

Similar to Spruz and Ning, but not as easy to use or as pretty. The admin interface reminds me of Joomla, which I never found very intuitive. I would recommend trying Spruz first.

My Yuku attempt : http://ayoba.yuku.com/ (To be honest I gave up in the first five minutes. I’m fickle like that.)

If you have any suggestions for the list OR would like to show us your site, please post it in a comment.

Here’s two new Elgg themes from Juipo.com, which I’m pretty sure I haven’t listed yet. Both are pretty simple, but with new added features like the dropdown menu in the Blackpod theme and a lefthand information panel for users not logged in on your mainpage, with the Red Fashion theme.

1. Black Pod

SEO Friendly Titles: Reversed Sitename and page/item title so sitename shows after page title, Elgg Topbar is removed completely and all items show under header in new bar (except messages), Messages (if any) displayed on left of search, Copyright year in footer automatically updates current year and more.

Download

Original Post

2. Red Fashion

Red Fashion, Free theme for Elgg. This free Elgg theme features dark red, red and black colors with lots of images. Works on Elgg 1.6.1 (1.5 uses different image styles for message icons), Elgg 1.5 version I will be released soon.

Download

Demo

I’ve noticed more and more visitors come here looking for Social Networking content, themes, plugins and directories.

To help you out I’ve opened three new sections in my free link directory, Ning, Elgg and BuddyPress. So if you have a site powered by any of those platforms, feel free to add it to my directory.

I usually don’t post my most difficult questions in my blog, due to the fact that I’m the one who is supposed to sort it out and THEN post about it. This time it’s different.

I recently made a post about the new Elgg theme Orkut, which I’m using in my new blogging network, but shortly after I discovered CosmicBuddy, the BuddyPress theme. Now CosmicBuddy provides everything that Elgg already had, which made me use Elgg in the first place.

The question is, start over with BuddyPress and the new theme, or stick with Elgg, and a much easier to use Admin interface?

If you think you can help me solve this question please drop me a comment.

BuddyDev.com launched a new BuddyPress theme entitled CosmicBuddy. It’s still in beta, but is safe to use. The theme is inspired by Orkut and looks amazing.

You can see the full demo here – : http://bpthemes.buddydev.com/comicbuddy/

Download it here – http://buddydev.com/http//buddydev.com/public-download/cosmicbuddy.zip

See the official release here -  http://buddydev.com/buddypress/cosmic-buddy-the-free-theme-to-turn-your-buddypres-to-orkut-style-site/

Orkut is one of the latest and freshest fully functioning Elgg themes available for download. The theme is provided by Webgalli, who specializes in the design, coding and hosting of Elgg powered sites. It follows a farm fresh theme,  is compatible with most plugins and the latest versions of Elgg.

Free Elgg Theme Orkut

 You can dowload it straight from Webgalli - http://webgalli.com/?download=Orkut%20Theme

Looking for a job? Offering a job? Need to advertise your website or find a specific one? Browse our classifieds or just post yours for free.

We currently have 8 categories you can post in:

Ever wanted to run a site similar to Facebook or Orkut? Well, now you can with Elgg. Elgg is a free, fully functioning open source social networking platform.

Elgg is very easy to install and comes preloaded with a set of plugins such as :

1. Blogs (Users can open and run their own blogs)

2. Microblogging (Such as Twitter and Facebook status updates.)

3. Messageboard (Such as on Blogcatalog profile area)

4. Gallery

5. Groups ( Users can start groups)

6. Media Sharing (Users can upload images, videos and files)

If you’re not happy with the preloaded plugins you can download or request more plugins in the plugin community. You can also download and install new themes from the theme repository.  You can do all this by simply uploading new plugins or themes to one folder and activating them.

If you would like to see Elgg in action visit this DEMO.

Feel free to register and share in our blogging community.