Private Social Network
A closed, private, secure, social network deployable for one organization

Professor Ben Gomes Casseres is interested in a tool optimized for groups or organizations of 100-1000 people or so. Create a secure internal social network that mimics the best of Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler, Reddit, Wordpress and other social media platforms. But this one should be focused on forums, topics, events, resources, and images of interest to the group. Ideally, cloud based and accessible from all devices. One use, for example, would be for internal communication inside Brandeis or a specific program here. But it will compete with open networks that students also use. So, ideally, it is linked to these open networks, filters relevant info from them, or something like that. The business model would probably involve the organization or group leader buying the product, managing access, and doing some monitoring. There are some products on the market that may approximate this, but it is not clear how good they are (e.g. Ning). Corporations often have such internal networks, but they worry more about security than organizations such as universities – for corporate use, a cloud solution is less likely for them.