The Appleseed Project is an effort to create open source
Social Networking
software that is based on a distributed model. For instance, a profile on one
Appleseed website could "friend" a profile on another Appleseed website, and
the two profiles could interact with each other.
Apart from being distributed, Appleseed will also have a strong focus on
privacy and security, as well as a commitment to seeing the user as an
online citizen, as opposed to a consumer to be targetted. This is in
stark contrast to current social networking websites, who rely heavily on
ad placement and data mining of their users.
The first goal is to create a codebase for basic interaction, such as
creating profiles, creating and participating in message groups, journals and
comments, etc.
Eventually, Appleseed will encompass many different aspects, from mail to
messaging to journals/blogs to photo uploads and management. A module
architecture is also in the works for even greater extensibility.
Development currently uses Object Oriented PHP4, MySQL (InnoDB), XHTML,
Javascript, and CSS2. Mozilla/Firefox will be the target platform.
I've completed the bulk of the Journaling and Messaging subsystems. A new
release is coming very soon. The test site (www.appleseedproject.org)
has been updated with the new features.
Next comes a huge code clean, and then the fun part: Adding friends to your
friends list.
Photo management has been added. You can now create and manage photo albums,
and upload and manage photos. A privacy system (for restricting access to
photo albums, and later, journals and other areas) has been implemented as
well, and, while still in it's infancy, is looking pretty good. The
commenting subsystem is also working.
We're looking at a source release very soon now. I'll be finishing up the
commenting subsystem, cleaning up the code, and giving it a good once-over
so as not to completely embarrass myself. And then the fun begins. I'm
also going to be setting up an invite-only site for beta testers.
Work has resumed. I've added the beginnings of an invite system, and you can
upload a new profile photo and icons. The foundation for photo management is
slowly being built as well.
Due to the recent acquisition of MySpace by
Rupert Murdoch, a
lot of interest in Appleseed has been sparked. Given that, I'm doing my best
to stop myself from adding features and do a code review so that I can release
the source much sooner than anticipated. Stay tuned.
This is just an estimate, definitely nothing scientific. A good amount
of the foundation has been built and tested, so development is going a lot
faster now. The security system has been completed, "themes" are in place,
user logins are working, and profiles can be configured.
Work right now is focused on going through and commenting and cleaning up
code before moving on to the next step, which will be adding and managing
friends. At first, only local friends will be able to be added, but the
hooks are there to add friends from a remote Appleseed site.