Social networking sites have increased in popularity in recent years. In fact, over 70% of the population are members of social networks. It is no wonder why a lot of companies prefer to advertise through these sites, as they are able to access a bigger demographic. Facebook alone receives over 60 million updates daily, proof that social networking has become the biggest thing on the Internet. This is perhaps why a lot of sites decide to incorporate social networking features within their pages. If you are looking for a program that will allow you to create your own social network within your website, then you have two programs to take into consideration, SocialEngine and PHPFox. These programs are considered to be the best when it comes to social network solutions.

SocialEngine will allow you to create your own unbranded network that is 100% customizable so that you can design it in such a way that would suit all your needs and preferences. The great thing about this package is that you are not limited to certain content or advertisements, as you are free to add your own unlike other hosted services that would require you to cater to particular areas of interest. You also get a chance to edit your own PHP source code, allowing you to integrate several custom features to your site. Since it is hosted on your own server, you are given complete control.

With SocialEngine, you can even choose from multiple social frameworks, depending on which you think will best suit your needs. From two-way friendship networks like Facebook to one-way networks like twitter, you don’t have to worry about limited options. You even get the chance to create sub-networks by age, location, workplace, university or whatever categories you feel like adding. Using this program is very easy, as you can use it through simple drag-and-drop content management. You can customize your widgets, create new pages, add advertisements and arrange your content. This fully customizable feature makes it easier for website owners to create a social network that is best suited for their needs and preferences. The plugins that come with SocialEngine have individual pricing, so you don’t have to worry about paying for entire packages when you cannot even use half of the plugins. You can buy only the plugins you want to ensure that you are not wasting any money.

PhpFox works in the same manner as SocialEngine. The program provides social networking solutions to website owners. With phpFox, you can add features found on most social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. By using this program, you get complete access to your website through your admin control panel, allowing you to customize every single detail of your social network. It comes equipped with an activity feed that will allow you to keep your members up-to-date about each others activities. It works in the same manner as the live feed in Facebook. You also get access to a user group manager, that gives you complete control of what each user can do. You can customize the settings per group if you want to. phpFox also comes equipped with an ad manager that will allow your to post specific advertisements based on location, gender and age group, to ensure that each ad appeals to the interests of such demographics. It even provides SEO friendly URLs to keep your sites on top of search engine results.

Both SocialEngine and phpFox offers many features. While they generally offer the same thing, there are some things that you can do with one that cannot be achieved by the other. Both programs have been proven to work but in the end it is up to the user to decide which one is best suited for his needs.