You may know that we launched a ‘Tribe’ on BlogEnergizer last month. It has been something we’ve been wanting to do for a long time because I really believe that we can’t be successful alone. That successful people get there because of people around them who were willing to pull together,  lend a hand and give each other a chance. While doing all that, we can all elevate each other.

This is new territory for us and I’m sure we’ll make mistakes – a lot of them. So far the response has been exhilarating and we are very encouraged. I have no idea where this road will take us. Good or bad, I’m going to give it our best.

Some people have asked me what I’ve been using to manage our Tribe. It is a software we purchased called Brotherhoods. It is a proprietary script but this script is not a social network. It is part forum and part task manager.

If you’re looking to build a more Facebook like community where people can actually friend people, create their own groups, forums, have their own ‘stream’, photos and blogs, you could always consider the more popular systems like Ning, KickApps or Groupsite.

For those who want more control and ownership, there are even some opensource systems like the ever famous BuddyPress or the standalone Elgg.

So why did we choose something that is so unheard of, something that is not quite an open community system and not as slick as some of these other systems? Well for one it suited what I had in mind. People can still communicate, connect independently with each other, but I also wanted to be able to control the quality a little bit. But perhaps the biggest reason is because it integrates with our shopping cart system very well.

I didn’t have to make any special plugin or hack anything. It already worked out of the box. I can give Premium members access to special Tribes and when anyone cancels, the shopping cart takes care of their accounts.

I don’t know what kind of community you want to build but if it has any sort of Premium or paid upgrade then I’d say the ability to work seamlessly with your payment processing system is a huge plus and you’d want to go with an option that gave you that.

By the way, I forgot to mention the system we use is not being sold outright at this time. But we do offer it as a done-for-you option. Contact us if interested.