Explode at Elgg.org

Ben and Dave have just launched Explode: a very simple, tag-based social network based on the Elgg platform. Users sign up, fill out their profiles, and then receive a graphic or javascript widget that they can use on their own sites to display the avatars of their Explode friends (see my sidebar for an example) and offer visitors a chance to leave comments there.

For the purposes of my language learners, it would be nice if Explode automatically matched profiles of different users that shared many tags in common. At present, users have to manually add ‘friends’ after browsing tags and profiles; fine if there are 100 users throughout the system, but not so useful if there are tens of thousands. Having trouble finding the right friend was something my learners struggled with when we were using Livejournal a few years ago, as it offered no matching system. Try skimming through 7,573 individual profiles of people interested in ‘music’…

Anyway, I’d thought I’d play around with Explode for a while and see how it develops.

Via Bee Dieu.

Trackbacks & Pings

  1. wide open spaces » Blog Archive » Explode Web 2.0 on 23 Feb 2007 at 10:33 pm

    [...] Not in the directory yet, but riding the social networking wave, Ben and Dave from Elgg launch Explode, which I have also joined. Aaron did a quicker and finer job reviewing it though so much easier to link back to him :-) [...]

Comments

  1. Marco Polo wrote:

    Great. I look forward to reading your report! I haven’t had time yet to really explore Elgg fully :-(
    I’m serious about the report. I’m considering whether to stick to WordPress or to go with Elgg for classes next academic year (starting April), so a considered, expert opinion would be of great help.

    Posted 21 Feb 2007 at 2:21 pm

  2. Ben Werdmuller wrote:

    User matching should be a simpler proposition on Explode than in Elgg, because there’s only one type. I’ll have a look - I agree that it’d be a really useful feature.

    Posted 21 Feb 2007 at 11:10 pm

  3. Aaron wrote:

    Marco, what report you are talking about? Do you mean the Elgg paper I co-wrote for the SITE conference?

    Ben, thanks for piping in - it’d be a nice to see that matching feature on Explode. Good luck…

    Posted 22 Feb 2007 at 7:57 am

  4. Marco Polo wrote:

    Yes. That one.

    Posted 22 Feb 2007 at 9:49 pm

  5. Nirmal wrote:

    Hi Aaron,
    Nice website…
    Me too experimenting with Explode…Hope it will develop into a gr8 social network!

    Posted 23 Feb 2007 at 1:56 pm

  6. David wrote:

    Sounds like a great social network tool for language learners. Thanks for sharing it. I’ll check it out.

    Posted 27 Feb 2007 at 2:23 pm

  7. DonaldHTaylor wrote:

    Aaron

    Great blog. As a former TEFLer myself (a long time ago) I am following online developments in this world closely. It seems like the web and ESL are made for each other. I’ll come back to you for further updates.

    I came across your site via Explode. I agree that the matching could be smarter. ‘Similar Users’ is a good first step, but it relies on people a) describing things using exactly the same way and b) ideally describing lots of closely related interests so that the truly close matches really stand out.

    I’m not carping. Explode is a great system, and I’d recommend it to anyone.

    Don

    Posted 09 Mar 2007 at 6:18 pm

  8. Aaron wrote:

    Hi Don….thanks for your comments. I enjoyed checking out your own blog and reading some of your thoughts. It always intrigues me what happens to people after they leave the TEFL field. Talk to you again soon.

    Posted 16 Mar 2007 at 3:06 pm

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