Some lessons are so good, they deserve repeating. And when it comes to open source tools, we are happy to sound like a broken record.

As you may recall in Moshi Moshi, we sang the praises of an open source social network called Insoshi. There’s actually a more seasoned contender. LovdbyLess is a free and fully customizable social networking platform, built using Ruby on Rails (an open source language and framework that is de rigeur in web development circles). Lovd developers have offered their code to anyone with an itch to socialize and the server space to host it. It comes with many of the same features and functionalities of its loved-by-more counterparts, Myspace and Facebook, such as:

• blogs with comment capabilities
• photo galleries with captions
• profile bio and information
• the ability to follow a user or “friend” them
• site search for friends
• user-to-user messaging
• profile comments
• user dashboard (recent activity feed)
• emailed activity
• flickr integration
• youtube integration

If you’re looking to stand on the shoulders of giants, okay, just a lot of other developers, here’s a good place to start.

If there were to be a dig against Digg, it would be that it’s overly focused on all things technology. And, daresay, all things Apple.

Now there’s another player available that goes well beyond tech stories, a site called Mixx. You might have seen it as it’s featured as an option at the end of every story on CNN.com. Needless to say, that feature on such a popular news site is driving all sorts of new traffic. It works much like its competitor. As an example, we’ve added the feed growth! post from yesterday. Please go on and promote it so you can see Mixx in action.

If you have an interesting blog and are looking to reach a more targeted audience, here’s your change. Just sign up, then start adding your interesting articles … to the Mixx.

Keeping your finger on the pulse of an industry is no easy task - especially when it comes to search marketing. You can easily spend more time sifting through data than gaining true insight.

One good way is to plug into a community of insiders, like Sphinn. It’s similar to Digg but geared to search and interactive marketers. It provides a space to share and discover news articles and blogs, and lets the community sphinn it! (vote) on the most relevant topics, which appear on the homepage. You can filter discussions by category as well. Let’s say you only want to focus on Google. Sphinn breaks down all Google content into individual service offerings. So whether it’s Google Adwords or general Google SEO, so you can hone in on content that matters to you.

Sphinn is an easy way to learn about search marketing and to see what one segment of the community is talking about.

We’re big fans of open source tools to do just about anything. From operating systems like Linux or content management systems like Drupal, there are lots of options.

Now there’s one for social networks too, called Insoshi. While it’s not for the non-technical, it can let you create your own social network for a very low price - zero. All you need to do is download and configure the software, then customize it to work for your customers. If you want to see what it looks like, you can just sign up and play around to get a good idea. Here’s my profile with one silly blog post to boot.

The current version of Insoshi has the following features:

• Activity feed
• Personal profiles with photo upload and comment walls
• Internal messaging system with read/replied/trashed messages
• Contacts list
• Blogs with comments
• Discussion forum
• Search for profiles, forums, and blogs
• Admin panel with site preferences
• Option for email verification and activity notifications

If you’re looking to engage your customers in a social network, here’s a low cost way to get started.

Despite the success of the Cluetrain Manifesto and its forceful commentary about the importance of creating a conversation with your customer, not everyone got the message. We all still run into companies who cause us heartburn. It might help to open up the conversation beyond the heavily scripted call center.

One way to do that is with Get Satisfaction. This system was developed to help with problem solving, promote sharing, and build up customer relationships. This service is a lot like a customer support board, but it’s a lot more free form. Users visit and pose questions or concerns about a company’s products or services. Then either the company or just anybody can answer. If it sounds familiar, it’s sort of a customer-focused version of Yahoo! Answers (that we discussed in Talk Amongst Yourselves). If you’re looking for a way to engage with customers outside of traditional challenges, here’s an easy way to do so.

Aren’t you wondering what your customers are asking about?

Even if you have moved a lot of your company’s interesting information online (or maybe all of it lives there), your customers might not always want to be online to access it.

Now you can reverse gears and publish from a website to a book using SharedBook. As you might imagine, this isn’t a capability that you can just flip a switch on and have it work. The best way to see how it works is to visit a site who puts their system to work, like Allrecipes.com. On this top rated recipe site, you can print your own cookbook, using just about any content available. Select your recipes, order your recipes, add your intro and images wherever you would like, then purchase a printed version (professionally printed hard or soft cover).

You can even then share the online version of your book and let other people add to or change it for their own use. Other companies who have figured out that people might want to create a customized book include Random House (customized children’s book), Seven Seas Cruises (cruise souvenir), and many others. Would an offline version of online content be something your customers might buy?

With so many different places on the web to join, create or upload content, and then share - it’s almost impossible to keep track of everything.

But with Friendfeed, you have an easy way to keep everyone in your circle up to date with your latest Flickr photos, YouTube video, addition to your Facebook profile, and so on. First, you sign up. Then, you invite a friend. Then, this system will import anything that’s been shared from sites across the web. If your friend marks a video as a “favorite” on YouTube, you get a link and a thumbnail of the video in your feed. if your friend indicates that he likes a news story on Digg, you get a link in your feed. While this may be obtrusive for faux / online friends, it’s just right for family members, real friends, or. . . even your brand zealots out there.

If you’re looking for a way to let your most passionate customers follow your brand’s activities online (photos, videos, preferences), here’s a way to let them follow even more closely. For individual driven businesses (musicians, artists, etc), this tool makes a great way to keep your list of fans connected, no matter where you are on the web.

How is it that it costs 3 dollars for a 15 second ring tone and it costs nothing to receive hours of entertainment on the TV? Maybe it’s the phone that’s overpriced.

Now, in the UK, 16-24 olds can get free access to mobile phone calls and SMS’s from Blyk. What’s the catch? Well, in exchange for receiving 217 free texts and 43 free minutes to any UK mobile network, they agree to receive up to 6 advertising messages every day. They deliver these benefits just by sending a monthly SIM card, not something that’s really possible in the US just yet. Some large advertisers are lining up to serve up ads to see what it’s like to have a direct line of sight to 16 to 24 year olds (first in UK, but eventually throughout Europe).

If you’re looking to do the same, well, in Europe at least, here’s your chance.

Up until now, publishers could use Google’s Adsense network to place ads on their site. If they wanted to use multiple ad networks, they would have to rely on someone else to manage the optimization across networks.

Now Google has added another piece to their puzzle, thanks to the addition of Google Ad Manager. It’s an ad management system that can help you sell, schedule, deliver, and measure both directly-sold and ad network-based inventory. As we discussed in Marks the spot, there are several other popular tools that publishers use to manage the different ways that you can sell ads for your site. Maybe your sales team will sell something special. Maybe you’ll work with one of the many specialty ad networks that perhaps focused on your industry. Then, of course, maybe you will want to carry ads from one of the big dogs, like Google. Now publishers can use this tool to manage all of the pieces.

Want to target ads to your site visitors’ geography, bandwidth, browser, browser language, operating system, and domain … here’s the way to do it.

Here’s a non-profit that might serve as inspiration - Takes All Types. This organization is a non-profit, centralized network of local blood donors and volunteers. They have developed a Facebook application (as we discussed in About face) that puts social networking to work. Here’s how it works. You sign up for the application (assuming you are already a member of Facebook) and then provide your blood type. Once your register, you will carry a badge indicating that you’ve signed up as a blood donor. One day, if they need your blood type, they will contact you and you can do your duty and give.

It should make you feel even better than recycling. You may just save a life. Is there something that you might do to put social networking to work for your cause related marketing efforts?

Despite protests from the web search guys, Microsoft is the undisputed software king in corporate America. However, many companies will find few blogging or social networking options that offer integration potential with their existing applications.

Blogtronix is a secured, enterprise social network built on Microsoft’s .NET Architecture. It offers a single platform for communication and collaboration, with wiki and blogging tools, RSS syndication, detailed profiles, and audio/video support. Unlike so many of the web-based tools, Blogtronix was designed to simplify a company’s internal and external networking processes. As you’ll see in this online demo, it offers many of the capabilities available (often for free) elsewhere.

If you know that you want or need to integrate with MS products, this solution may be what you’re looking for.

There are so many people who buy a CRM system, like Salesforce, only to realize that it’s a real chore to complete customer profiles beyond the most rudimentary contact information.

Now, for Salesforce.com users, much of that chore has disappeared thanks to the mashup called FaceForce. With very little effort, this system lets you insert Facebook profiles directly in your Salesforce customer or prospect records. Instead of just seeing name, title and address, now you can see things like home town, birthday, and importantly, friends. FaceForce will even search for Facebook profiles that match your existing clients and compile all company contacts with a profile in your Accounts detail.

If you’re wondering how to be customer-centric, why don’t you start with gathering information that your customers have already provided in their Facebook profiles? Oh, and don’t forget this is all free (given that you’re already paying for SalesForce.com).

Word of mouth has always been powerful, but for the most part, it’s also been terrifically difficult to impact.

Facebook looks as it is going to change that with its Social Ads. With this system, you can place your ads so they are shown to users whose friends have recently engaged with your Facebook Page or engaged with your website through Facebook Beacon. Even better, you can target based on keywords, geography, even relationship status (e.g, single, married, dating). This new approach puts social networking to work … to spread your brand message.

Just write your ad, decide who should see it, and then decide where you want to drive traffic … for as little as $5 per day.

Everyone wants to enable the social glue of customer generated content - videos, pictures, blog posts, and everything else you can imagine. But, what a bother.

Now you can create your own social network, using Kickapps. It’s a community-building platform - something of a private label social network that you can embed in your site with a modicum of effort. You may even have already seen it, if you’ve visited or used community features on ABC Family, the DIY Network, or the Phoenix Suns. A Kickapps community can let your customers upload videos, photos, and MP3’s. They can create a rich profile to let other community members know all about them. Then, they can create or join special groups to get to know everyone. If you want to create your own brand’s Facebook, here’s one way to do it.

Now you can’t say that creating a customer social network is beyond your reach.

While it’s easy to talk about social networking, it can be more challenging to actually enable it for your customers. There are so many moving parts.

Now you can create a social network with one of many social networking platforms - some without even knowing any HTML. The term social networking covers so many areas, that it’s very difficult to identify just one system that’s right for any one company. With this detailed list, you should look for a company that’s like yours (or maybe one you admire), and then consider using the same software. There’s no shame in being a fast follower.

Think your customers want to express themselves with comments, tags, images, videos, and any number of customer-generated items? Why not give them a canvas to paint on?

It should come as no surprise that some of the most innovative advertising vehicles are connected with the marketing of music. It’s almost purely emotional and, more importantly, the heaviest users and buyers (okay, downloaders, too) are also the very tech savvy youth market. Want to reach this target?

Try creating a Slide design that can act as the background or frame for content on MySpace, Facebook, or any number of other social networking sites. Users simply choose a background, then add photos (either from their PC or from a service like Flickr), and then simply copy and paste the code into their social networking site. Slide is a master at serving up the specific code for embedding their “frames” into other sites (as you’ll see in this Diana Krall example).

Slide reaches over 130 million social network users across the web. Whether you’re selling (Toyota) Scions or the latest movie, creating an easy to use Slide can be an efficient way to reach today’s social networker.

Your best customers have something in common - their interest in your brand and your category (of products or services). We’ve spoken about a service named Twitter (see Stay close to mother hen ) that lets you stay connected with your customers by text message. Now there’s a more robust offering that helps you create a mobile social network with your customers.

Frengo lets you create text messaging channels called buzz, then invite people to participate (by mobile or web). Once you’ve created your channel, you can then interact by text message with your members. You can keep these text messages private (restricted to your members) or let anyone follow it by opening it to the public. There’s almost no limit to interesting content - imagine updates from the latest industry trade show, a fashion show, or even a sponsored sporting event. Or, you can just push original content, say a groovy growth idea, to anyone who subscribes.

Your customers can follow your brand wherever it goes - all for free.

Today social networking is most associated with websites like Facebook or MySpace. However, the real social marketing device isn’t a website that you can access from your laptop on our desk . . . it’s in your pocket.

Dodgeball (owned by Google) shows you how social networking can take advantage of the fact that everyone carries a mobile phone. What’s interesting here is how the combination of mobile phones and social networking can bring together people. Members of this system sign up and confirm their cell phone number. Then, they check in with the service, say when they’re at a bar. The service will then let their friends know where they are and also alert the member if friends or friends of friends are anywhere nearby.

In the same way, you could create a social network today, using low cost tools, and combine it with basic mobile phone capability to keep your customers close to you. While it’s not as easy as just flipping a switch, it could help you retain your existing customers and bring them back to your business more frequently.