Elgg is
open source
Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...
social networking
A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for a ...
software that provides individuals and organizations with the components needed to create an online social environment. It offers
blog
A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order ...
ging,
microblogging
Microblogging is a form of social network that permits only short posts. They "allow users to exchange small elements of content such as short sentences, individual images, or video links",. Retrieved June 5, 2014 which may be the major reason for ...
, file sharing, networking, groups and a number of other features. It was also the first platform to bring ideas from commercial social networking platforms to educational software.
History
Elgg was the first platform to bring ideas found in commercial social networking platforms to education. It was founded in 2004 by Ben Werdmuller and Dave Tosh, based on informal papers they had written over the previous year. Combining their experience (Werdmuller was a web entrepreneur who had been building and facilitating
online communities
An online community, also called an internet community or web community, is a community whose members interact with each other primarily via the Internet. Members of the community usually share common interests. For many, online communities may fe ...
since 1995, while Tosh was a postgraduate student in online education) they created a social networking approach to
e-learning
Educational technology (commonly abbreviated as edutech, or edtech) is the combined use of computer hardware, software, and educational theory and practice to facilitate learning. When referred to with its abbreviation, edtech, it often refer ...
, with the former designing the architecture and writing most of the code. Subsequently, they founded the company Curverider Ltd to continue the development of the software and to provide Elgg-related services. Elgg has since become a cross-purpose open source social networking platform.
In April 2009, Werdmuller decided to leave the project, leaving Brett Profitt in charge of development. Werdmuller has since released
Known, an open source publishing platform. In May 2010 a hosted version of Elgg launched in
beta
Beta (, ; uppercase , lowercase , or cursive ; grc, βῆτα, bē̂ta or ell, βήτα, víta) is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 2. In Modern Greek, it represents the voiced labi ...
. In December 2010, Curverider was acquired by Thematic Networks and Elgg was transferred to a
non-profit
A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...
foundation.
Elgg is free to download and use. It is dual licensed under the terms of the
GNU General Public License
The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end user
In product development, an end user (sometimes end-user) is a person who ultimately uses or is intended to ulti ...
(GPL) as published by the
Free Software Foundation
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded by Richard Stallman on October 4, 1985, to support the free software movement, with the organization's preference for software being distributed under copyleft ("s ...
and the MIT License. Elgg runs on the
LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP) platform. Elgg is used by Lorea as the engine of N-1.cc, the self-organized social network of the Spanish
15-M social movement. The same applies for the self-organized Anillo Sur and Saravea Lorea latinamerican social networks.
In April 2010 a multiple site version of Elgg was released by the former core developer Marcus Povey. As of January 2013 this project can be found on GitHub, a new version based on Elgg 2.x was released in 2018.
Sites powered by Elgg
Here is a list of some sites powered by Elgg
See also
*
Comparison of social networking software
*
Social software
Social software, also known as social apps or social platform, include communications and interactive tools that are often based on the Internet. Communication tools typically handle the capturing, storing and presentation of communication, usua ...
References
External links
* {{Official website, http://elgg.org/
Social networking services
Learning management systems
A learning management system (LMS) is a software application for the administration, documentation, tracking, reporting, automation, and delivery of educational courses, training programs, materials or learning and development programs. The learni ...
Learning management systems
Free software programmed in PHP
Blog software
2004 software
Microblogging software