Well, it was all started from December 5, 2004, by Kevin Rose with the launch of the biggest social bookmarking website of all times – Digg, and within no time, we can now see thousands of allied websites all over across the web offering similar services. Anyhow, if you are new, may I tell you that a social bookmarking website is one that allows you to bookmark your articles, so that when someone reads the title, he or she may like to click on it and visit your website for reading your complete article.
The business model behind all social bookmarking websites is simple. Any blogger, webmaster, writers, author and in general anyone, who has a website or blog, can bookmark his articles on the “Social bookmarking platform like Digg” and then in return can get a continuous flow of traffic from it to his website or blog. This system simultaneously helps both the service provider as well as to the bookmarker. On one hand, service providers like Digg and others get free user-generated contents in huge quantities and the bookmarker, on the other hand, gets traffic to his/her blog and earns something from it. Thus, this system is growing at the speed of light in the blogosphere.
So, probably you are here, which clearly clarifies my that you want to create your own bookmarking site like Digg, Stumble Upon, or anything very similar. Well, the good news for you is that we are now living in the age of Open source software’s and cloned scripts, so virtually we can develop anything using this software right from your laptop. The beauty of open sources is that you get the international quality software’s, scripts and cloned scripts legally without spending a single dollar on it. Moreover, the development of these open-source software or in other words project goes on at a rapid speed that helps you to get the latest updates from time to time without any hindrances. So let’s start exploring the unexplored corners of available resources for helping you to develop your next social bookmarking website.
Below you can discover lucid information on various available resources for developing, customizing, integrating and hosting your dream bookmarking site. Well, some of the most popular scripts and software’s that are going to help you to complete your project are 1. PHPdug 2. Pligg CMS 3. Agriya MarkIt 4.Hotaru CMS 5.Loudle 6. Truworthit PHP bookmark script 7. Kigg 8. Drigg 9. Upward 10.Dugg Plaza.
List of Social Bookmarking Scripts (Digg Clones)
Note (The below-given numbers or arrangement or order is no way related to any kind of ranking or anything.)
Pligg CMS
From the last several months I am researching on find out the No 1 script or you can say the best open-source software for creating a website very similar like Digg. Well, to the best of my research, my knowledge, at present, it appears to me that perhaps Pligg CMS is the best software for developing a social bookmarking website of any nature. I think Pligg has its own monopoly over the social bookmarking market. I have seen hundreds of webmasters preferring Pligg dues to his simplicity. Pligg has a unique blend of flexibility which is neither simple nor rigid.
Pligg is nothing but the most powerful content management system that anyone can download and use for free, yes absolutely free! It provides you a great social publishing platform for encouraging visitors to register on your website for sharing their articles, contents, stories or anything. It helps you to start your own publishing communities within hours.
Moreover, you can get hundreds of beautiful template, extensions, components, plugins and etc for customizing your website to extreme possibilities. Pligg, if implement with a robust business model can potentially make millions of dollars for you.
URL http://www.pligg.com/
PHPdug
The second most powerful social publishing script is PHPdug developed by kubelabs.com. It helps to create a website very similar like Digg or any other social bookmarking website and includes features like users rating, voting, polling, comment system and etc. Some of its exclusive features are:
1. You can easily customize your template with little HTML knowledge.
2. It includes strong spam filtering captcha security system.
3. The installation process is very simple and everything is done by the wizard system.
4. It potentially includes a very good Dig button.
5. The admin backend is fantastic.
6. It automatically creates thumbnails for youtube and google videos.
7. It automatically adds stories from RSS feeds
URL : http://www.kubelabs.com/phpdug/
MarkIt
Well, the third most powerful script for creating social bookmarking websites is Markit (Mark -it). It is indeed a great script for introducing relevant contents within other websites of similar interest. Using Markit you can virtually start your own website in hours to help people to share what they find with others. It enables users to tag, save, and share their favorite websites and contents. You can use this software for developing intellectual websites related to Education, Professional, Health care, Tourism and etc.
URL: http://www.markit.me/
Hotaru CMS
The Hotaru CMS goes with the tag line “Open Source Plugin-Powered CMS Engine”. Well, Hotaru is an open-source software developed with PHP for helping webmasters to develop their own social publishing website within hours. It includes a number of powerful templates, themes, and plugins for customizing the default Hotaru CMS. Although you can use this CMS for developing a general website but mostly is used for developing potential social bookmarking platforms. It includes special treasures for webmasters like in-build class libraries, extensions, 3r party scripts like ezSQL, htmLawed, Inspekt, JSMin, and SimplePie.
URL : hotarucms.org
Loudle
Recently, I learned from Source forge about Loudle. It is a script, which helps to create a Digg like news submission website. But unfortunately, I think, the developers of this CMS are not anymore working on it. But, anyhow, you can still download and use it from Source forge
URL : loudle.org
Truworthit PHP bookmark script
The name of this script sounds interesting. Doesn’t it? Well, I have very little knowledge on it and I really have no idea whether this script is trustworthy or not. Please apply your own wisdom on it.
URL: http://www.demo.truworthit.com/bookmark/
Kigg
Personally speaking, I am a great admirer of Visual Studio.net. These days I was quite bored learning that most of the scripts are developed with PHP. I was pondering upon, where are my .net brothers and sisters were gone? It is good to see Kigg, which is completely based on dot net. So here is what I call the golden fish for all the dot net developers across the world for literally having a good social publishing website. If you are one of them, may I recommend you to use this script because you can customize it to the deepest possibilities?
URL: http://kigg.codeplex.com/
Drigg
WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal are the three diamond caskets from which you can get the treasures of web 2.0 revolution. Well, my favorite is Joomla. Anyhow, if your favorite is Drupal, then you can absolutely use Drigg for adding the bookmarking features to your Drupal website. Drigg is developed by Tony Mobily. Hay Tony, how are you? Thanks, for developing such a wonderful module.
URL: http://www.drigg.org
Dugg Plaza
Dugg Plaza is not a script or anything, it is a wonderful template developed by templateplazza that included certain features of social publishing. Well, I don’t know whether they are updating it for latest versions of Joomla, but certainly you can use it on your own Joomla website with little customization.
In coming days, I am looking forward to seeing a good Joomla Pligg integration plug-in as well as a better social bookmarking extension for Joomla.
Conclusion
To sum, up it could be concluded that right now due to phenomenal rise of open sources software’s; one can almost develop anything and the only limitation is nothing but the limitation of his own thinking. Anyhow, let me give my endnote that you can easily develop your own social bookmarking websites like Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, delicious, Mixx, Slashdot, Diigo and etc using the above-mentioned scripts.
Learn research and experiment thoroughly before hosting your next social bookmarking website to avoid chaos.
