ud121 SOCIAL

Create your own social network

The Platform

Create your own social network

ud121 social is a complete platform for the creation of social networks or niche communities on the internet.

Fully adaptable to suit each project, this open-source software-based platform (LAMP), contains a wide range of key features and options for creating your successful web community.

Besides the capacity to present content to users in a personalised way, it also incorporates the most recent artificial intelligence algorithms in the relationship of people with each other, potentialising the growth of the network exponentially, through viral communication structures.

Includes:
Groups, Forums, Blogs, RSS, Events, Messages between members, Video, Music and Photo sharing, Customizable profiles, Management and monitoring of friends´ activities, Widgets, Advanced comments and voting system, Lists of favourites and recommendations, Powerful management panel, SEO optimization, Integration with Hi5, Facebook, Twitter, Gmail contacts and much more.

Features

ud121 social offers a global solution that allows full interaction and integration with your objectives in creating your social network

General

  • Customisable website design: Graphic treatment totally adapted to the needs of each project.

  • Anti-spam features: Automatic images (CAPTCHA) for filtering records, black list of words, blocking IP addresses, usernames and e-mail addresses.

  • Advertising and monitoring: Possibility of integration with advertising engines and traffic management with external entities.

  • Integration with other systems: Synchronisation capacity with other proprietary systems.

  • No licensing costs: The platform is based on an open-source architecture (LAMP) used today in multiple success cases.

Member Profiles

  • Customisable record sheets: All the fields that make up the member´s profile may be adaptable according to the needs of each network.

  • Birthday Camps: If there are any, the system automatically calculates the number of days left until the anniversary, so you can trigger notifications to your friends, promotions or other type of alerts you want.

  • Customisable CSS Stylesheets: Each member has the possibility to enter his style sheet on his personal page within the community.

  • Configuring privacy levels: Each member can define which groups of friends can access their profile, blogs, groups, albums, etc. And among other features, who can send you messages.

  • Registration by invitation: If desired, members can have a limited number of invitations. This strategy of limiting direct access to the network makes the invitations valuable, allowing it to grow in a viral way in a controlled manner and with valuable members.

  • Import contacts: Through the connection to email services, such as Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, among others, the user can check which contacts are already on the network and invite others.

Content

  • Index search: Incorporation of an advanced data indexing and search system with grammatical and orthographic treatment capacity, such as errors, plurals, accents and intelligent word search.

  • Customisable navigation systems: Navigation structures that include dynamic filters to the content presented, in order to reduce the number of clicks to access the desired information.

  • Blogs: Through a friendly interface each member has the possibility to create his own blog by inserting ceilings, images and videos. The system has also a possibility to manage the privacy policy inside the system.

  • Photo albums: Members can enter and manage their photos, as well as describe and group them.

  • Video gallery: Direct conversion of the videos introduced to be viewed by a Flash Player, with options for expanded view.

  • Comments and voting: Members can comment on any content on the network. Through voting on the content published by members, they will gain reputation within the network, and greater visibility can be given to both the content and the members with the most points.

  • Lists of favourites and recommendations: possibility for each member to add content from the network to his/her favourite lists and to create and manage recommendation lists for the other members of the network

Interconnection of members

  • Groups of friends: members can co-create links with other members of the community, using "labels" for them, such as "Friends", "Family", "School", etc, facilitating interaction between them.

  • Groups: Each group, besides having a discussion panel, also has the possibility of being able to associate relevant contents of the network, as well as to make an efficient management of the members that constitute it.

  • Message Center: With an interface similar to that of a webmail, it is the place from where members send and receive private messages, as well as a series of complementary actions in order to interact with other members of the network.

  • Public messages: Possibility for members to add comments to other members´ profiles. User blacklist: Ability that members have to be able to block others, preventing them from contacting them.

  • Status and mood: Through a short sentence expressing what is on each member´s mind (micro-blogging), their personal status is shared by the other members of the network. Compatibility between members: Depending on a member´s preferences and activity on the network, whenever they access another member´s profile page they can view the % compatibility between the two

Advanced features

  • Widgets: Possibility of creating widgets tailored to each project. These small applications used increasingly successfully, work as a gateway to the network, promoting viral marketing through other networks and external blogs.

  • Interactive games: Through the existing contents, the system is able to generate interactive multiple-answer games, capable of involving users and consequently their loyalty to the site.

  • Events: Public events: Users can create events in the calendar (becoming the administrators of the events created) and invite their friends to participate. Public events appear on the user´s profile page.

  • Chat: Chat system with AJAX technology, where users can see who is in the room. Messages can contain icons, and notification by sounds is also possible.

  • E-commerce: Possibility of online catalogue management with stock control and promotional offers according to the history, profile and behaviour of users on the network.

  • Integration with the Payment system: Payments can be made via REDUNICRE (Visa, Mastercard), PayPal, or other entities, with the addition of logistical flows associated with them.

  • Statistics System: Automatic generation of graphs on various global network components, categorised by various time periods.

  • Definition of communities: Possibility for the administrator to create segments of members, based on their profiles, preferences and history of activity on the site, thus being able to create forms of communication directed to each of the micro-communities generated.

  • Newsletter system: Possibility of controlled or automatic sending, using pre-designed graphic templates, to members of the site or to previously defined micro-communities.

  • Multi-channel communication system: Taking advantage of the ud121 platform´s basic features, several extensions for sms, fax, printer and catalogue can be put into practice.

  • Content Syndication: Capacity to disseminate various site information using RSS and XML services, with the possibility of creating WebServices tailored to the needs of the project.

Thematic Social Networks

Create your own themed social network with ud121 social

Generalist social networks such as Facebook, Myspace and Hi5, are great ways to keep in touch with friends, but themed social networks can offer so much more.

Companies are learning that these niche communities can reach the people who are most valuable to their brands and to the presentation of their products.

Since mid-2007, the web has seen the emergence of hundreds of networks focusing on the most diverse themes: books, wine, food, relationships, music, games, health, business, hobbies, animals, politics, science, sports, technology, travel, among many others. In April 2009 the Ning network (a site that allows users to create their own social networks with basic functionalities), reached the historic mark of 1 million communities, once again evidencing the phenomenon of the new era of web.

Advantages of thematic social networks

  • Through the focus of the topic to be addressed, more refined communications are created with the users you wish to contact

  • Better conditions to serve the needs of your community and the people who share the same passions

  • Niche networks allow advertisers to focus more on ads tailored to those specific audiences, thereby increasing the value of advertising

  • Anticipation of your brand in relation to the competition, by gaining and retaining the loyalty of customers, in an exponential growth

  • Ideal opportunity to collect detailed information about users, their habits, generate feedback and suggestions, refine offers and messages according to the needs highlighted by users.

Current Web Scenario

With the emergence of Web 2.0, new marketing strategies have emerged and with them new models of websites supported on social networks are used more and more effectively.

In addition to the emergence of new technologies, several paradigm shifts have occurred, leading cybernauts to stop looking at the web as a source of information, moving on to use it as a platform for participation. The new era of web is people, sharing, cooperation, collaboration, debate and the creation of friendships. Technology is enabling us to do the most human thing.

Currently, Institutions and Companies are starting to be sensitive to this phenomenon, which leads them to be more and more present on the most popular networks such as YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, Hi5, Facebook, as well as moving towards their own thematic networks.