It’s no secret that incorporating social elements can increase app uptake through increased user engagement by means of the social effect. ‘Elements’ is a powerful open-source UI toolkit that greatly simplifies the building of social apps.
Elements can be added to your existing project with just 1 line of code & customization of the appearance is effected easily with built-in variables, letting you create a social experience around your existing Content & your user’s activity.
The toolkit provides a way around the complexity of building a mobile-based social app from scratch by providing building blocks for defining & managing user profiles, with profile pictures that you can add & change or sync with Facebook. User profile info & preferences can be easily managed, follower & friend activity, user-based activity on feeds & timelines, as well as letting users create bookmarks, wishlists, favorites, watchlists & more.
Through notifications you can keepers up to date on what’s happening in their network. You can flexibly design which events & notifications you want displayed, such as a like, the changing of a profile picture, or getting a new follower. You can display unread badges in-app or if you prefer on the home screen, thus leveraging the activity of the community & driving user retention.
You have the choice between having open or private networks & between the friends or followers model for your network. It allows you to leverage other popular social networks like Twitter or Facebook, or to use your address book to ‘find friends’. If you wish you can let users search other betwork users to find people they can connect with.
Elements is available for iOS on Github & is being developed under an open-source model by the Berlin-based company Tapglue. You can get Elements for free if your needs are modest (1000 users), as can be seen on Tapglue’s pricing page. Their ‘standard’ package costs US US$199 per month & adds up to 10.000 users with ‘advanced’ feeds, while for the ‘enterprise’ package with unlimited users, raw data access & premium support, you’ll have to contact the company.
– This post is merely a startup profile based on publicly available information & not a review. -
Image Credit: Elements
