New services and partnership developments at Elgg

After talking to a wide range of existing and potential Elgg users in the corporate and education spaces, it’s become very clear that there are many organizations out there who want all the features and benefits of Elgg but don’t want to have to install it and host it themselves. Taking on board these views, I’m delighted to announce that we’ll be offering a hosted solution on elgg.com from May 2010.  

This will be based on the forthcoming Elgg v1.8 and will include a number of options that will enable users to upscale and customize their networks.  I’ll keep you posted on developments and the evolving feature set as we near launch. Head over to elgg.com if you’d like to register an interest in the service and receive updates about what’s on offer.

In parallel, the Elgg team has received many enquiries over the past few months from people looking for help with planning, customizing and implementing their in-house Elgg networks. We’re a fairly small team, so it’s not been possible to provide assistance in all cases, especially given the geographical diversity of the projects. But the volume of requests has focused our minds on the benefits of establishing a global network of Elgg partners who can meet the growing demand.

We’re keen to make sure this is executed carefully and properly, so we’ll start by appointing ‘Community Partners’ who have a track record of contributing to the Elgg community and who demonstrate an ongoing commitment to the further development of Elgg in the future.  Later on this year we’ll be looking at ‘Commercial Partners’ who will be fully accredited by us to offer Elgg-related commercial services to clients.  Drop me a line if you’d like to find out more about partnership opportunities.

That’s it for now.  Get in touch if you’d like to discuss our services in more detail or would like to talk about using Elgg within your organization: Email me.