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Wordpress beats Community Server
By chris dalby | May 6, 2007
I have recently installed Community Server to run the Live Meeting User Group (LMUG) community and spent a good few days reading up documentation and trying to configure it.
Having done this, I am glad I plumped with Community Server, but sad I haven’t gone with Wordpress. Wordpress is by far the best community platform. It kicks Community Server way into the distance. “What?” I hear you say. An Open Source blog platform is better than a fully loaded community platform with not only blogs, but forums, video libraries, picture libraries, tags, CMS ……
When I first setup the LMUG site, I created a free wordpress blog at http://livemeeting.wordpress.com and set-up a few widgets to add content and community interactivity. I then decided we should register a domain name and go to town with the website - to incorporate blogs, forums, video, downloads, case studies, knowledge base etc. My personal brief to create the new LMUG community site was a fully featured system requiring point and click configuration while also allowing the community to drive content as I have enough blogs and websites to worry about already.
Community Server does exactly what it says on the tin. It is a very good instant community platform with all the features you need and some really cool AJAX features. Created in .NET, it is a huge step forward from the Community Starter Kit available from asp.net, which was pretty much the only other .NET community system. There is also quite a lot of investment going into Community Server, there are a few MVPs, loads of CS centric blogs and books being released, which shows excellent confidence in the platform.
Where Community Server wins is being able to tick all the boxes when it comes to technical specification for a community. Where it falls short, however, is the distinct lack of community when it comes to all these “out of the box” features. This is because CS uses it’s own internal engine to provide each one of these services. E.g. a photo library instead of flicker, a tag system instead of delicious or technorati, a boring rss feed instead of feedburner, video uploads instead of YouTube. I could go on…..
In the world of instant gratification, CS wins, because it does all of these features out of the box. No time is wasted spent fiddling, tweaking and integrating instead of playing with the kids or drinking wine. However the insular nature of each separate proprietary community kinda misses the point.
If I had time to spare, I would have gone with Wordpress for the LMUG community. The main reason that I didn’t, was time. However, Wordpress is by far the best community platform. Truly Open Source, with new templates, themes and plugins being released on a daily basis. When new cool Web 2.0 subscriptions get released, they make sure they integrate with Wordpress.
A few months ago, I moved my blog to Wordpress, because I got fed-up with disgusting and vulgar spam on my blog and the complete lack of integration with all the web services I use.
My blog was originally powered by Presstopia, which was the best Open Source .NET blog I could find. I wanted a .NET blog, as we are mostly focussed on Microsoft technologies and I felt it was the right thing to do. I massively ignored common sense here, simply to have a .NET blog - Name the top 10 blog platforms, and a .NET system would not be there.
What I would like to see is a .NET community platform that ticks all the technical boxes, but also allows integration with all the best community features like flickr, delicious, technorati, feedburner, last.fm. .NET in general is massively behind on this trail.
Topics: Tech Watch |
May 13th, 2007 at 11:25 pm
[...] Chris Dalby Untangles Networks » Wordpress beats Community Server chris’ opinion (tags: wordpress blogs .NET) This entry was written by jgovernor and posted on May 13, 2007 at 11:25 pm and filed under Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL. « links for 2007-05-11 [...]
June 18th, 2007 at 3:47 pm
The enterprise edition gives access to all its source. Surely that means interaction must become possible with the like s of flickr (if they were to grant the permission to use)flickr commercially.
June 19th, 2007 at 9:03 pm
Chris, thanks for your comment. The main integration I am referring to, is with services like flickr and deli.cio.us. No amount of programming will enable you post your photos direct from flickr onto community server. This is something needing to be tackled with the providers so they will provide the integration.
June 23rd, 2007 at 10:32 pm
Hi Chris, did you try the lastest version of Subtext?
June 24th, 2007 at 5:52 pm
Though you feel wonderful with this then moderation is the key to success
August 16th, 2007 at 8:08 am
[...] and discussion are not best of breed. It was refreshing hear this and it is something that I have blogged about previously. The point he does make, which is again something I have picked up on, is that as a canned service [...]
January 14th, 2008 at 12:23 am
Your site is a refreshing change from the majority of sites I have visited. When I first started visiting web sites I was excited by the potential of the internet as a resource and was very disappointed initially. You have restored my enthusiasm and I thank you for your efforts to share your insights and help the world become a better place.