moronic_kaos
Regular Member
- Nov 17, 2009
- 273
- 568
Ok. So now we all know the limitations of this service. But guess what, it doesn't have to be so limited.
As I mentioned before, this is an Open-Source platform, meaning it is free to download (just like wordpress). And, like wordpress, dozens of these sites can be set up to relate to any niche we want.
So, here's what I am proposing in order to drag this thing out more:
We create a network of these sites. Now hold on, I've already looked into it. The basic features such as twitterfeed functionality should be compatable with something as simple as HostGator hosting. But exactly how do we get the sites popular?
Make the sites invite-only. In order to apply for membership, the applicant must do some kind of SEO work to contribute to the site (based on what that particular site owner feels is necessary). The site builds popularity & pagerank this way. Once its full of PR and Google Bots, and the site has been somewhat overspammed, just make another one.
They could also all be niche-related & post some kind of related article on the homepage so Google picks up on content.
Here's the server requirements to host something like this:
Any thoughts?
As I mentioned before, this is an Open-Source platform, meaning it is free to download (just like wordpress). And, like wordpress, dozens of these sites can be set up to relate to any niche we want.
So, here's what I am proposing in order to drag this thing out more:
We create a network of these sites. Now hold on, I've already looked into it. The basic features such as twitterfeed functionality should be compatable with something as simple as HostGator hosting. But exactly how do we get the sites popular?
Make the sites invite-only. In order to apply for membership, the applicant must do some kind of SEO work to contribute to the site (based on what that particular site owner feels is necessary). The site builds popularity & pagerank this way. Once its full of PR and Google Bots, and the site has been somewhat overspammed, just make another one.
They could also all be niche-related & post some kind of related article on the homepage so Google picks up on content.
Here's the server requirements to host something like this:
I highlighted the last paragraph to make the requirements a little less frightening. I mean for our use, who the heck would need GTalk or Jabber or SMS?Prerequisites
=============
The following software packages are *required* for this software to
run correctly.
- PHP 5.2.3+. It may be possible to run this software on earlier
versions of PHP, but many of the functions used are only available
in PHP 5.2 or above.
- MySQL 5.x. The StatusNet database is stored, by default, in a MySQL
server. It has been primarily tested on 5.x servers, although it may
be possible to install on earlier (or later!) versions. The server
*must* support the MyISAM storage engine -- the default for most
MySQL servers -- *and* the InnoDB storage engine.
- A Web server. Preferably, you should have Apache 2.2.x with the
mod_rewrite extension installed and enabled.
Your PHP installation must include the following PHP extensions:
- Curl. This is for fetching files by HTTP.
- XMLWriter. This is for formatting XML and HTML output.
- MySQL. For accessing the database.
- GD. For scaling down avatar images.
- mbstring. For handling Unicode (UTF-8) encoded strings.
- gettext. For multiple languages. Default on many PHP installs.
- tidy. Used to clean up HTML/URLs for the URL shortener to consume.
For some functionality, you will also need the following extensions:
- Memcache. A client for the memcached server, which caches database
information in volatile memory. This is important for adequate
performance on high-traffic sites. You will also need a memcached
server to store the data in.
- Mailparse. Efficient parsing of email requires this extension.
Submission by email or SMS-over-email uses this extension.
- Sphinx Search. A client for the sphinx server, an alternative
to MySQL or Postgresql fulltext search. You will also need a
Sphinx server to serve the search queries.
You will almost definitely get 2-3 times better performance from your
site if you install a PHP bytecode cache/accelerator. Some well-known
examples are: eaccelerator, Turck mmcache, xcache, apc. Zend Optimizer
is a proprietary accelerator installed on some hosting sites.
External libraries
------------------
A number of external PHP libraries are used to provide basic
functionality and optional functionality for your system. For your
convenience, they are available in the "extlib" directory of this
package, and you do not have to download and install them. However,
you may want to keep them up-to-date with the latest upstream version,
and the URLs are listed here for your convenience.
- DB_DataObject http://pear.php.net/package/DB_DataObject
- Validate http://pear.php.net/package/Validate
- OpenID from OpenIDEnabled (not the PEAR version!). We decided
to use the openidenabled.com version since it's more widely
implemented, and seems to be better supported.
http://openidenabled.com/php-openid/
- PEAR DB. Although this is an older data access system (new
packages should probably use PHP DBO), the OpenID libraries
depend on PEAR DB so we use it here, too. DB_DataObject can
also use PEAR MDB2, which may give you better performance
but won't work with OpenID.
http://pear.php.net/package/DB
- OAuth.php from http://oauth.googlecode.com/svn/code/php/
- markdown.php from http://michelf.com/projects/php-markdown/
- PEAR Mail, for sending out mail notifications
http://pear.php.net/package/Mail
- PEAR Net_SMTP, if you use the SMTP factory for notifications
http://pear.php.net/package/Net_SMTP
- PEAR Net_Socket, if you use the SMTP factory for notifications
http://pear.php.net/package/Net_Socket
- XMPPHP, the follow-up to Class.Jabber.php. Probably the best XMPP
library available for PHP. http://xmpphp.googlecode.com/. Note that
as of this writing the version of this library that is available in
the extlib directory is *significantly different* from the upstream
version (patches have been submitted). Upgrading to the upstream
version may render your StatusNet site unable to send or receive XMPP
messages.
- Facebook library. Used for the Facebook application.
- PEAR Services_oEmbed. Used for some multimedia integration.
- PEAR HTTP_Request is an oEmbed dependency.
- PEAR Validate is an oEmbed dependency.
- PEAR Net_URL2 is an oEmbed dependency.
- Console_GetOpt for parsing command-line options.
A design goal of StatusNet is that the basic Web functionality should
work on even the most restrictive commercial hosting services.
However, additional functionality, such as receiving messages by
Jabber/GTalk, require that you be able to run long-running processes
on your account. In addition, posting by email or from SMS require
that you be able to install a mail filter in your mail server.
Any thoughts?
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