One tool for this is the very powerful, open source Elgg. Elgg offers blogging, networking, community, news feed aggregation, and file sharing. And best of all, you can retain this such that only users inside your local LAN can log on and enjoy the site.

In this article you will learn how to install Elgg to create your own social networking site.

Preparation

For the sake of simplicity we will install this tool on a Ubuntu Server (building on our Ubuntu server articles) The first thing you will need to do is to download the Elgg tar file from the Elgg download page. Once you have this file downloaded move it to /var/www and then untar or unzip the file (depending upon which you download) with the command (issued from within the /var/www/ directory):

sudo tar xvzf elgg-XXX.tar.gz

Where XXX is the release number.

Now you will want to rename the directory to make it easier for your users. So issue the command:

sudo mv elgg-XXX elgg

Where XXX is the release number.

Now you are almost ready to begin the installation. But first a few small bits of housekeeping.

The first thing you need to do is to create a database for Elgg. I always suggest using PhpMyAdmin (see my article “Install PhpMyAdmin for easy MySQL administration“). Create the database “elgg” (no quotes).

The next step is to create a directory Elgg will use for files. This directory must be outside of the Elgg root directory, so create the files directory with the command:

sudo mkdir /var/www/files

Now you must give this new directory the proper permissions, so issue the command:

sudo chmod 777 /var/www/files

One other issue on permissions. During the actual installation Elgg will need to write to the elgg and the elgg/engine directory. If the installation process can not write to these directories it will then require you to create an .htaccess file and an engines/settings.php file. I suggest do this:

1. Take note of the current permissions of your elgg and elgg/engine directory (most likely drwxr-xr-x).
2. Issue the command sudo chmod 777 /var/www/elgg.
3. Issue the command sudo chmod 777 /var/www/elgg/engine.

Now you are finished with the preparation. You are ready to fire up your web browser and begin the installation.

The installation

Fire up your browser to the address http://ADDRESS_OF_SERVER/elgg which will open up a very easy installation wizard. Because of all of your preparation work, the installation will be painless. Once you are done with the installation you will want to go back and change back the permissions of the elgg and elgg/engine directories.

Figure 1

The first thing you will do, once installation is complete, is create an initial user. This initial user will be your administrator, so make sure you use a strong password. Once you have logged in as your administrator you can begin to add widgets for users profiles and/or dashboards (see Figure 1).

In order to add widgets you just drag them from the Gallery to either the Left, Middle, or Right section for either the user profile or dashboard. It’s very simple to set up.

Final thoughts

Elgg is an outstanding social tool that will allow you to create an intra (or even extra)  social network site. It’s easy to install and even easier to manage.

First of all, it all runs in your browser, so no need to switch to a different app, it makes things quicker and smoother, although you’ll need a quite powerful machine to run everything in all its glory. It took me all of 2 minutes to install, so it’s also easier on your system. Second of all, it just seems like so much more fun than SecondLife, just look at the graphics.

Lively tries to stand out from the crowd by giving you some cool features, and if I know Google, there are many, many more along the way. You can interact with other users, watch Youtube videos on the TV’s (together if you want), create rooms, avatars and so on. So far nothing groundbreaking, but I’m guessing that Google Maps, search, and everything else Google has will be implemented soon enough, I’m particularly interested in seeing the maps development. So far Youtube implementation is most interesting to me, you can create screening rooms for fun videos, your own videos, or anything you’d like people to see.

The single thing that caught my eye and interest most was the looks. The easy going, but not wacky design works for me, although I guess it may deter some people. I think the focus here is on fun looks which still enable realistic interaction and it looks to me like it worked. You can choose to go to an island, a graveyard or a sky city, but all look equally cute to me.

If you like SecondLife or other similar sites you’ll love Lively, but in the end it’s still nothing more than a simple virtual world. Fun, maybe a bit addictive, but only marginally useful.

My Jazz Network is basically a very high quality content on demand site, focused on jazz alone. You can listen to anything you like, or listen in on live radios, compilations, you can even buy anything you like in the store.

If you are a jazz addict or someone venturing into this “scary” area of music, I can recommend this site. Beautifully done, you will have access to a huge array of talented artists. I found the sound quality of some radios under par, but with gems like Miles Davis, you’ll soon forget this.