modules

This blog post was originally posted to my blog at Mediacurrent. It appeared on Drupal Planet.

This summer I was a mentor for the Google Summer of Code program for Drupal. I maintain the Facebook-style Statuses module, which allows users to have a stream of “status updates” on their user profiles and to write messages on other users’ profiles, like Facebook. So when I had the chance to mentor the Facebook-style Micropublisher proposal, which built on Facebook-style Statuses to allow attaching images, links, and video to status updates, I jumped on it.

The result was a resounding success, and I learned a lot during the process. Nitin Gupta, the student driving the project (and better known to some as publicmind) was an extraordinary developer in the true Drupal spirit. He gracefully put up with my pickiness about coding style, thoroughly researched the best code architecture for our purposes, and even identified places where Facebook-style Statuses itself could become more flexible. I truly believe that Nitin will remain committed to the module he created, and that both of us are better Drupal developers as a result of this process.

Finding the Balance between “Contribute Now” and “Register First”

People don’t like to sign up for things. Signing up is mentally equated with receiving spam marketing emails. For example, at a blood drive event near me last year, only a handful of people signed up ahead of time, but almost six times more people showed up.

Web designers face a similar dilemma. It’s important that users sign up for websites where users contribute content, both to reduce spam and to track and identify users’ contributions. But often users don’t want to sign up, even though they want to contribute – and the barrier of signing up will keep some people from contributing. I’ve experienced this personally; especially when dealing with something contentious, people often don’t feel comfortable giving an unknown website their identity in this age of limited privacy.

Two days ago I wrote a blog post on my Mediacurrent blog about some of the features that typical social networks have that Drupal needs to work on. It appeared on Drupal Planet. Head over there to get the full scoop.

Yesterday night I gave a presentation on Social Networking in Drupal at the Atlanta Drupal Users Group meetup. Grab the slides or watch the video!

The presentation was based on one I gave at DrupalCamp South Carolina/LinuxFest SouthEast.

Two days ago I wrote a blog post on my Mediacurrent blog comparing "Friend" modules for Drupal 6 social networks. It appeared on Drupal Planet. Head over there to get the full scoop.