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This post is just a heads up on things I will be posting about Drupal in following weeks. I have been using this content management system (CMS) for quite some time (and also Wordpress).

This site - the root - runs on Drupal. (This blog though, runs on Wordpress).

My personal site, runs on Drupal. And so does, my friend, Sushil’s site, that I helped him setup. Drupal is a great choice for personal websites, when you need to do more than blogging. It lets you handle an assortment of types of content, and yet be able to manage it based on taxonomy system - in simple words - a way of categorization.

Drupal, can be used not just for personal sites, but also community sites. I used Drupal to setup FunKaam.com - a community site in the making.

In a series of post, I will try and cover:

• Hosting and installation of Drupal sites - I have got quite a few requests on giving an explanation
• Setting up Drupal powered site - regarding the core and supplied modules
• On extending Drupal - choices on community/third-party modules

Please comment below if you would like to know anything else on Drupal.

It has been not long back that Google made a move to acquire DoubleClick. This sent waves of different emotions through out the blogosphere and internet in general. Google has been grown to such an extent under such a short time, that it is faced with quite a varied palette of reactions for every action it takes.

And it was not long before Microsoft hedged to have the officials look into the Google DoubleClick acquisition under the scrutiny of Antitrust Laws.

Antitrust Laws in United States

Antitrust Laws in United States prohibits monopoly (or anti-competitive behavior) and condemns unfair business practices. The antitrust laws seek to protect the consumers. If a particular company is able to set itself in a monopoly position, it can change the prices and the supply at its own whim, since it is not driven to deliver quality service/products in order to compete with its competitors.

History Of Antitrust Cases

United States has seen its share of Antitrust cases filed against several companies in this decade.
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Social Networking Sites, as much as they build bridges between people, also are a cause for deterioration of behavior of the community as a whole.

It is basically not just Social Networking Sites, but any site that foster interaction between people - is a place where community behavior could take the wrong turn.

Could you imagine how in appropriate it is, for people in real life, when they meet each other in person, in a public place to rant out ‘colorful’ words at each other? From the mild ‘you suck’ to anything highly profane - uttered in public would be ridiculed. It is not that people do not use such words at all - but it is acceptable in some places. Say a intoxicated people in a drinking place, or may be on a free form wrestling ring.

The anonymity or the layer of insulation that the internet gives is sufficient for the people to go over the edge. It takes all forms and shapes - and is quite amusing to study. Even credible people cringe at the thought of the Digg userbase. It does not take long for a userbase to turn into a mob. All rationality is thrown to the winds and what remains is something that is much closer to a deranged beast.

Of course, I have made a lot more friends online than the times I have had to face such nuisance. But I have to admit that the chances that you run into a person with retarded behavior is much more than your neighbor being a psycho killer. (No, it is not based on any statistics )

Social Networking Sites have quite a few features that are quite common, even if it is a general site or a site on targeted niche.

Basically these sites have the following features.

• Profile
• Friends List
• Messaging
• Discussion

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You are a member of at least one social networking site - be it Orkut, Facebook, Hi5, MySpace, Bebo or some other. You are a member of one or more of them. It makes one wonder, what is it about these sites that make it so desirable to have a place for yourself there.

On a very basic level, social network sites is a list of friends, family and other types of contacts. It is just an extension of your life. You have friends and family in your real life (not to say that online is not real), and you connect with them in various ways for various purposes.

You want to change and move to a new house? Call your friends and drop them a word. Very soon you will have a list of houses you can move in to as your choices. And how many times have you suggested a friend to another when they wanted a roommate? We seek contacts and store them just in case that we might need them at some point in future.

Having a network can some times me more of an asset that having something tangible. And it comes as no surprise that this has extended to the online world.

The internet might have made the world a smaller place, but it is these social networking sites that have brought people of common interests closer.

In few following posts, I will be trying to analyze these social networking sites, and just the people networks in general, so that we can have a better understanding of them.

Looking at the whole Web 2.0 phenomena, and how the different kinds of websites are adding features and integrating with other sites, it makes us wonder one thing. Are all the social networking sites leading to convergence?

Convergence is not in terms of only one website dominating the internet, but one kind of website dominating the internet. By convergence, I do not say that there will not be numerous sites having different contents - but if all of them would be technically doing the same thing in terms of features.

There are different kinds of websites - forums, blogs, directories, news sites, services, review sites. It is a list I dare not attempt to make it exhaustive.  All these sites are evolving to be social networking sites.

For example, a forum that I frequent, that runs on IPB recently upgraded.  Among the features that got added, one of the notable ones in this perspective was a set of inter-user interaction.  All the members could connect to other members - tag them as friends, leave messages, rate them and more.  Sending messages to each other had been a standard in all forum softwares.

One of the directories that I frequent, Pixel2Life,  is basically a directory. It is a directory of tutorias on various subjects.  But it has now grown to a point where the members interact with each other so much, that I dare call it a community. It has evolved to be a social site.

Blogs, seem to a bit behind on this front in spite of being a forerunner in the Web 2.0 phenomena. But as a blog grows and matures, more and more of them are having forums of their own, and it turns out to be a place for people to hang out.

All sites seem to include more and more features that has a basic theme to it - make visitors into members who hang out and spend more time at the site.  The point that emerges now is, will this make it harder for the social networking sites to survive?

The question is hard to answer, because the social networking sites seem to approach this from the other end. They integrate several forum like features into their sites where a group or subset of the community can discuss.  They are integrating blogging systems, that let their members to go on a ranting rampage.  They are even opening up doors for other non-social networking sites to integrate with them.

The outcome of this developments, as seen now, is quite hazy.  But it is going to be an interesting ride.

What are your thoughts?