Comparison w/ tribe.net

Hello, I run a group with about 3000 members on a social networking site called Tribe.net.

It supports personal profiles, friend networks, and groups (called Tribes).  Within your profile you can have blogs, photo galleries, and a variety of other media types.  Tribes support photo galleries as well as listing services and threaded conversation forums.

However Tribe is sickly, not making money and there are questions about it's long term survival.  So, I am considering creating a site for the group I run for the community I support and I was looking for software to run it.

Dolphin looks like it should fit the bill.  However, I am curious if there are any users out there who are familiar with Tribe and can compare and contrast and let me know if there are any obvious features that Tribe offers that can't be done through Dolphin.

(The Boonex website makes it all look like candy and cake.  Easy, flexible, etc.  But the forums also show lots of bugs and complaints.  So, I was looking for an opinion from hands-on users before I just dive in and get dirty.)

Thanks, torque.

Note I'd pay for the ad-free version, but we'd host it ourselves, etc.

I'm not familiar with tribe. If you are familiar with hosting and what is involved you could certainly install this in a subfolder or subdomain using the free version without being out anything. Play around with it see if you can get it to work for what your style and expectations. You would obviously have ads in the free version, but other than that there really isn't any difference. So if you like what you see and can customize it to what you want just imagine all that with no ads.

Some do have difficulty and issues. I can almost 99% of the time atribute this to lack of hosting qualified to run dolphin. If you do your reasearch and go with one that is known to work from the beginning you will eliminate almost all technical issues. Send me a message if you are interested in who I'd recommend.

Second issue is lack of customization technical scripting knowledge. If you are comfortable with making changes to php, mysql, html, css, and related no problems. The script is designed to run as programmed. Many try to change it or alter it with lack of understanding and when things don't work out they blame who of course the designers/makers. When in fact usually it's there own mistakes that cause the problems. This is with any software. MS windows is designed to run out of the box, but you start messing with the code or  the registry and such then you really can't blame MS.

And the final issue is the rms server, only needed for things like im, profile video, chat video and such. The free boonex rms tends to mess up or have issues. If you have vps or dedicated installing the red5/rms server if you have knowlege is the way to go. If not I highly recommend cyberxings rms service for $1-$3 per month you can't beat it and works for free or adfree mode.

If you need help or tips the forum is highly active and some searching here or at expertzzz will bring you many results.

Again most of this can be solved with proper hosting, a plan with backups that can be restored prior to messing with things you are not familiar with, and restoring if necessary before jumping into something. Asking questions or searching before hand will help a lot too.

Many of us are here to help.

Look forward to seeing you around. Anymore thoughts or ideas, most of us will be glad to help you.

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