Strategy for Developing Online Communities and Social Networks in Drupal

Those "in the know" about Drupal realize that Drupal is far more than a content management system (CMS) even though it often gets categorized that way. Drupal as a CMS is more like one specific feature or type of use, of many. It's more of a platform, and on Drupal.org it's labeled as "Community plumbing" and an "open source content management platform".

People are realizing more and more than Drupal makes an excellent platform for online community sites and social networking sites. An extensive array of community-contributed (i.e. free) modules allows quick deployment or a cost-efficient base for further customization and development. It's easy to get to the point of "ooh", "aahh", and "wow", and then want to add and implement module after module because it's, well, "cool".

But developing an online community or social network with Drupal ought to involve more strategy than implementing every possible module. There are a few reasons for this, including:

1. Developing online communities and social networks is not strictly a "technology matter". Yes, many people would disagree with me, and certainly much of the discussions since Web 2.0 has focused very heavily on the technology aspects of developing such sites. But in my experience with both technology and online community development, I've learned that online community depends on much more.
2. An overwhelming array of features may detract from usage rather than promote adoption. Many times, websites are able to implement new features successfully because there already is strong adoption and a solid, active user base. Making a website be and do everything from the very beginning is not always the best approach if it simply overwhelms potential new users. A plethora of features without content, usage, and users may send the wrong message and detract from adoption.
3. Unless one is building an online community or social network simply for the sake of it, one has specific reasons and goals. Perhaps you've identified a particular niche. You may have other goals. The point is, you likely have reasons and goals, so how you approach building the site should reflect that. If your goals are most focused on content generation alone, then the features you implement should help drive user-generated content. If your goal is meaningful interaction (quality vs. quantity) or the deeper development of a true online community, then the technological features should help ensure maximum opportunity. Technology is best leveraged when it works hand-in-hand with the specific goals of online community and social network development. Technology is best used when it support goals rather than commanding it.
4. Logical choices for development and use of technology also depends on resources (to build and maintain), marketing strategy, demographics of target users, etc.

This not a comprehensive list of things that might be considered with online community and social network development in Drupal, but they are a few considerations I think worth noting. Many large and successful sites in this category (not Drupal specifically) with worldwide brand recognition due struggle too. In many cases, adoption has happened at such an incredible rate that it outpaced strategy in product development and use of technology. When users are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of other users, content, updates, applications, etc., further product development is challenged. Product development at the enterprise-level is much more challenging than it might seem from the "outside looking in".

So learning from this, even if one isn't trying to build the next Facebook with hundreds of millions of users, lessons can still be applied when building an online community or social networking site in Drupal.

Your choices even without extensive custom development include the user of modules like Organic Groups, User Points, Advanced Forum, and many more, including core Drupal features like polls and multi-user blogs. What you implement and how you implement them will do more to contribute to the success of your project if you let your overall goal be a guide in your web development strategy.