Hi everyone,
My company has been building small sites with Silverstripe for nearly 2 years now. We have generally used our own proprietary PHP framework for more complex, custom developed sites. However, we recently inherited a rather old site built entirely with static pages (nearly 1,000) that relies on third party web sites like Kickapps for certain community functionality. For a number of reasons, including a desire for tighter integration and control, we plan to replace those sites with software that we will host on our server. However, the core site itself - a directory comprising about 1,000 pages - has no CMS right now. This core functionality is something that we are still torn as to whether we should use our own framework, which has some limitations as concerns a site like this that would take time to overcome.
So the issue is - build with our own framework or use another CMS/framework like Silverstripe (or Drupal or whatever). The issue is made more complex by the need to have some functionality like a true social networked community (not a simple forum), which we all know is a module that doesn't exist yet in SS.
If we were to implement Silverstripe, we would need to be able to integrate it with some third party social networking solution. I've researched Elgg, Dolphin 7 in depth, and read of a number of others.
Can anyone comment on the above, specifically:
1. Am I mistaken in my assumption that SS doesn't have existing social networking modules, whether approved by the organization or not
2. Has anyone had experience integration SS with third party social networking systems? If so, can anyone recommend the best option for an easy and tight integration with all of SS's features such as member management/authentication, templates, database model, etc.?
Thanks,
Mark