Social networks, groups and communities

Social Networking is clearly a major area within today's Web 2.0 environment. Ourmedia.org and the upcoming PeopleAggregator will expand Drupal's capabilities of handling relationships, groups, 'identity browsing' and bring together a comprehensive suite of modules - for social networking in Drupal. The "Social Networking" session will cover the functionality and usefulness of this code.

Participants

• Marc Canter (organizer)
• Boris Mann
• James Walker
• Chris Messina
• Gerhard Killesreiter

Drupal as Social Networking Platform

Profiles, buddylists, and shared interests. What modules and features directly relate to social networking? What features do other standalone systems have that still remain to be implemented in Drupal? How to encourage other projects/businesses to use Drupal as the starting point for social networking systems?

Implementing Groups

There have been previous attempts at implementing groups with the groups.module and most recently organic groups (og.module). There is broad agreement that the functionality of having users be able to organize and interact in groups within the context of a single Drupal site is a good feature. This would also be especially useful on Drupal.org. How do we move forward in implementing this feature? What needs are there?

A Network of Networks

What would happen if social networks had a common API to send messages, join groups, establish relationships, etc. between each other. FOAF as a data structure is great, Sxip Networks as an authentication system is even better - but we shouldn't to stop there. We'll present a design for a 'PeopleAggregator' set of APIs - which will interconnect disparate social networks together. Once a copy of Drupal has been set-up, system operators will be able to inter-connect their system not only to other Drupal systems - but also any other system that supports the PeopleAggregator APIs.