Best Open Source Social Networking CMS: Wordpress Wins, Drupal and Elgg second

Submitted by Bryan on October 29, 2007 - 6:51am

Packt Publishing is starting to announce the various winners in its Open Source CMS Awards.  The first category announced was the Best Open Source Social Networking CMS.

Packt is pleased to reveal that WordPress is the first winner of the 2007 Open Source CMS Award, picking up the best Open Source Social Networking Content Management System. In a very close category, WordPress came out in front of Elgg and Drupal, who finished joint second.

Judges comments for their decisions included:

  • WordPress’s ease of configuration, professional approach, usability and enthusiastic community.
  • Elgg as a true Open Source Social Networking CMS, its variety of themes and overall user experience.
  • Drupal had a long list of positive comments from the judges and was praised as a good overall package.

Winners of the various categories will be announced throughout the week, including Best PHP on October 31st and Overall Winner on November 2nd.

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Congratulations to

Submitted by Ben Werdmuller (not verified) on October 29, 2007 - 9:26am.
Congratulations to WordPress, and thank you to everyone who voted for Elgg!

Anyone got links for social

Submitted by Rowan (not verified) on October 29, 2007 - 3:49pm.
Anyone got links for social networking sites built with Wordpress?

Congratulations to the

Submitted by Jeff Eaton (not verified) on October 29, 2007 - 4:50pm.
Congratulations to the Wordpress team! I must admit I'm a little baffled by its win in the Social Networking category, but I'd be really curious to see any sites like that built on the platform.

Wordpress Social Networking Challenge

Submitted by Bryan on October 29, 2007 - 6:05pm.

I've heard of Wordpress being used as a component for social networking sites, but not as the application used for social networking.  I've asked Deane Barker if he came across any social networking sites using Wordpress while he was on the judging panel for this category.  Before you pick on Deane, know that Wordpress wasn't his choice for best social networking CMS either, but Elgg (I agree!).

Now, I don't want to take away from Wordpress' win.  The judges/voters have spoken.  Like others though, I'm interested in what are the best social networking sites based on Wordpress.  I suppose we could consider wordpress.com in it's own right as a social networking site (that relies heavily on blogging to sociallize).  Though that site uses mu-wordpress for its software.

 

I have to admit, I was also

Submitted by AmyStephen on October 29, 2007 - 7:55pm.

I have to admit, I was also a bit surprised by that. Drupal was my vote on best social networking tool. I love WordPress and consider it the undisputed world champion of blogging, but social networking? I wonder if SNing is becoming as ill defined as Web 2.0?

 

Having said that - I am very pleased to see WP recognized. It is very underestimated and discounted in the utility provided the world.

 

I have my fingers crossed for Plone tomorrow. There's another tool that does not get due respect, IMO.

 

Amy Stephen
http://OpenSourceCommunity.org

n/a

I voted for...

Submitted by Deane (not verified) on October 29, 2007 - 8:25pm.
...Elgg. I didn't find any social networking sites built with WordPress. My final vote was this: 1. Elgg 2. Drupal And I tried to stop there. But they required that I provide a third, so: 3. WordPress Only because I couldn't see what Moodle or LifeType could do, and I figured that I knew about WordPress enough to make it a social networking app if I absolutely had to.

I'm glad I'm not the only

Submitted by Rowan (not verified) on October 29, 2007 - 10:09pm.
I'm glad I'm not the only one feeling a little *surprised* by this, Wordpress is good but I can't imagine using it for a real social networking site.

A questionable choice

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on October 30, 2007 - 10:55pm.
I think the outcome of this category demonstrates that Packt could re-think their methodology for the CMS Awards. They should do it for their own sake, if they don't want to look like they don't know what they're talking about... Wordpress is good. It just doesn't belong to this category.

The people's choice

Submitted by Bryan on October 30, 2007 - 11:29pm.

One thing that is important to remember is that Wordpress was placed as a finalist in the social networking category not by Packt publishing, but by those in the public who voted.  It's the CMS users that decided Wordpress should be in this category.  At a stretch, I could see Wordpress being modified with plug-ins to allow more social networking features than the baseline Wordpress.  Blogging does allow for some social interaction (just look at the comments here).  Perhaps that's the reason those supporting Wordpress thought it would fit in this category.

 

Though, I agree Packt needs to figure an approach in the nomination process that allows for the best CMS to be nominated more by merit alone and less by popularity.  Also, one would assume the panel of judges could have weeded out those CMS that didn't have merit for the category they resided.  As a judge in the Overall category, Packt gave the judges plenty of room to make their own judgement and their was no interaction with the judges on the other panel.  While I was pleased that Packt did not try to bias the judges decision making (I truly believe they want to see the best CMS chosen), I would like to have heard (and argue with) what the other judges were thinking.  Perhaps, the panel of judges should choose the best CMS for their category via a collaboration process and not a voting process.  I choose #1, you choose #2...so let's talk about it and see if one can win the other over.  I'm always ready to rumble...