ecommerce solutions company, announced today the fourth development release
of the GroupIT Engine (http://www.groupit.org), a group collaboration and
knowledge management system to power the next generation of web
sites, intranets and extranets. This release adds several notable features
including an automated installation script, mime support for document forums,
an improved security model, convenient front-end editorial
features, threaded bulletin boards, improved session logging, a 100%
performance improvement and a dramatic increase in scalability tolerance.
Groundbreaking Features
Built for the Linux platform, the GroupIT Engine is fast becoming the most
manageable, powerful and customizable knowledge management engine of it’s
kind. GroupIT supports the organization of content through an unlimited
number of hierarchical categories and sections, which can be created or modified through
simple online forms. GroupIT supports threaded
bulletin board messages, dynamically paginated articles, external web links,
photo galleries with automatic thumb-nailing and binary documents
(including spreadsheets, printable documents, presentations, audio, video). Access
is controlled through read, write and editorial security levels
assigned on a per-category and per-section basis. Any section can be open
or moderated, and work group memberships provide for secure, compartmentalized
team environments. A comprehensive administration web site allows direct
access to the database back-end, and provides detailed reports concerning
membership, security, activity and content. Bug tracking technology sends
SMTP alerts immediately upon errors, transmitting full environment information
to the web site administrator for fast problem resolution.
It’s a Small World
GroupIT allows geographical content to be organized into nearly 6,000
regional web pages with a few mouse clicks. “Toggle on a section’s
geography for automatic geographical organization of content.”, Sean Pecor,
the author of GroupIT, explains. “Imagine adding a single Links section titled
‘Distributors’ in merely a few seconds. Instantly, you have a worldwide,
national or regional directory of distributors. That section would
immediately be available for visitors, members or employees to search and
maintain.” GroupIT is packaged with a geographical database consisting of
248 countries, 3,886 provinces and 1,649 U.S. cities. Further, GroupIT’s
database of 42,399 U.S. postal codes help pinpoint a member’s location via
latitude and longitude coordinates.
Massively Multilingual
The multilingual capabilities of GroupIT, through it’s language tree, are groundbreaking.
“Each tree defines the look and feel and the words used.”, says Sean,
“GroupIT is packaged with an English tree that can be
translated into other languages without disturbing html or core logic. Further, each registered member of
your GroupIT powered web site can change their language preference, and the
entire web site will update instantly.” The GroupIT language tree
also lends itself to the creation of themes. “An entertainment portal could create
multiple visual frameworks and each member could change the entire look and
feel with a few mouse clicks. Create a Hand held theme for a small screen
with no graphics or a High Bandwidth theme that uses the latest in desktop
technology. You have complete control of the look without interfering with
the core logic of the GroupIT Engine, which is version controlled and
supported by Digital Spinner.”
It Takes a Village
Community features are encoded in GroupIT’s DNA. “There is a GroupIT
profile page for each member of your web site or extranet.”, says Sean,
“This page provides contact information and gathers all of the content that
the member has contributed and displays it in a compact guide format. With no
additional programming, you’re able to gather together, by author, works of
art in an Art Community, photos in a Photographer Community, or Sales Reports
by Personnel in an extranet environment. This community feature will
help people connect with colleagues and peers through their contribution to
the greater community, and with no additional effort. GroupIT will even
allow one member to contact another through this profile page while protecting
the privacy of the recipient.” Users may bookmark any category, section,
content and/or geography combination. Sean explains, “Drop a ‘Profiles’ section
into any or all categories and your users can be shown which members have
book marked within that area. This is just another way that GroupIT helps a
user establish to a network of mentors, peers, colleagues or friends.”
Instant Gratification
GroupIT is a turnkey product that can be customized by Digital Spinner, or
by any competent third party developer. Customized solutions can be developed
for any application including inventory, ecommerce and human resources.
Thanks to the modular nature of GroupIT, these customized solutions can
be developed rapidly and seamlessly integrated with the GroupIT Engine.
Says Sean, “So much research and development went into the default
installation of GroupIT that very little customization is required for many
Extranet environments. In fact, the www.groupit.org web site is running a
vanilla installation with no custom programming. What you see there is what
you get moments after downloading GroupIT. Simply change the logo and you’re
ready to go live.”
The system installs in less than 10 minutes. It requires the Linux operating
system, the MySQL database server, the Apache web server and PHP. The entire
source code of the GroupIT Engine is available for download and use under the
terms of the “Orchestrated Original Source License”, which restricts distributing
modified versions of GroupIT but allows anyone to make their own
modifications and to distribute modifications as separate plug-ins or packages.
Use of GroupIT in research and development environments, and for personal
use, is made possible under OOSL at no charge. Competitively priced commercial
licenses are available for business use, and include unlimited email technical
support and free upgrades.
About Digital Spinner, Inc. Digital Spinner (http://www.digitalspinner.com)
is a small, privately held company that builds innovative Web solutions for
clients throughout North America. Presently, several companies have taken
advantage of GroupIT Technology, including Arete Industries, Inc.
(http://www.areteoutdoors.com), Job Village LLC (http://www.jobvillage.com)
and Digital Spinner, Inc. itself (http://www.marketingtool.com). Digital
Spinner is seeking its first round of venture financing while working towards
GroupIT v1.00. For more Information about the GroupIT Engine, please
visit http://www.groupit.org.
SOURCE Digital Spinner, Inc.
Web Site: http://www.digitalspinner.com
