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Publication in the community "X Networks - IT aggregator No. 1"

When you decide to create a new social network, you will inevitably have to choose a platform. The platform isa set of software tools that make a social network's unique functionality. Software tools are both ready-made technological solutions (databases), development tools (programming environments), and particular assets (libraries, add-ons, drivers).

The platform is also an infrastructure that provides storing and executing the social network program code and storing the created content. Today it is customary to place infrastructure in data centers to improve reliability and reduce the cost of maintenance. In some cases, the infrastructure may be in-house, but this is generally not typical for social networks.

There are three main approaches to choosing the right platform for a social network.

The first involves using SaaS (Software as a Service) solutions. The SaaS platform provider offers to use its infrastructure and configured software modules to launch the website quickly, easily, and inexpensively. Such a website can look like a social network, as it has similar user interaction elements. However, this is the end of the similarity. You are not the software owner and cannot manage the infrastructure. Furthermore, the inability to make unique additions to the platform and low-load ability turn the whole idea into a toy.

The second approach is to use ready-made CMS scripts and extension plugins. In this case, you freely use the program code and, as a rule, independently rent and manage the infrastructure. Your capabilities would be tremendous if you had a ready-made script for building an actual social network. Unfortunately, all knownsocial networks are in no hurry to share their developments, so you will have to spend a lot of time and money finalizing existing CMS modules and developing the missing ones. If you hire a development team, the costs can be tens of thousands of dollars only for revisions and many months for testing. And all this work can be in vain because the CMS web engines are designed to serve websites and are not optimized for social networks. Low performance and low scalability will eventually lead a social network on such a platform to the finale of the once-famous MySpace. Look, users of this social network have lost all interest in it in just two years since the pages began to open with long delays or did not open at all.

The third approach is devoid of compromise and assumes creating a social network based on the custom platform. All current dominant social networks have emerged thanks to this approach. Total individualization for the tasks and complete control over the software and hardware components result from huge investments and thousands of hours of tireless work. These platforms are designed to implement only the specified functionalitybest. In other words, if Snapchat developers had received Twitter source code at their disposal, they would not be able to use it for their unique features, such as Lenses. It seems to be a natural specialization. But think about the risks; how many social networks were launched according to this logic, and how many of them found their users? To develop a specialized social network platform for millions of dollars, with the risk of its lack of demand, seems almost an adventurous idea.

Is it possible to avoid the rigid framework of SaaS solutions, the innate weaknesses of CMS, and the extremely high cost of developing the platform from scratch? X Networks offers a unique solution - to create your social network based on their specialized QNSE (Qwerty Network Social Engine) platform. First, let's get to know the capabilities of this platform better. QSNE is a framework (software solutions) and a server infrastructure that serves each project (proxy servers, CDNs, cluster storage systems). Speaking of the software part of the platform (a framework), we can say that it includes libraries and solutions for high-load projects, artificial intelligence solutions, information security software solutions, functional components of social networks.

The stack of technologies used uses solutions created in Go, Python, Java, NodeJS, PHP, Kotlin, Swift languages. We emphasize that our platform is a whole set ("combine") of open source solutions. Both SQL and NoSQL databases (in combination and depending on the tasks to be solved) provide high speed, reliability, and scalability of solutions in the context of big data processing. In addition, our drivers for the systems and databases allow the platform to handle many exceptions and work in conditions of high loads and reliability requirements.

Practical platform tests conducted in 2020 and 2021 confirm the highest resistance to loads. As a result, the Google PageSpeed Insights test demonstrates a great response time on the QSNE platform. The remarkable fact is that less than 0,000001% of all sites on the world Internet have similar responsiveness.

It's time to talk about the functions implemented on the platform. First, note that this is only a general description of what is required for a social network. Of course, the platform allows you to implement any unique function.

  • Built-in support for all world languages and correction tools for translators, automatic detection of the user's language with the possibility of subsequent configuration, translation of publications and user comments, as well as other content into readers' languages;
  • Built-in billing system allows you to operate more than a hundred different currencies, virtual and national, calculate cross-rates taking into account exchange processing centers and rates of various central banks, provides the functionality of the payment system;
  • The X Networks file cloud can store and configure file access for users. It provides storage and access capabilities similar to Google Drive to share and attach files to publications or other objects. This is extremely important because social networks and complex portals are content generators;
  • Billing and payment control systems integrated with notification services;
  • Artificial intelligence Qwerty AI (flexible capabilities, users’ technical support, intelligent ranking of publications);
  • News aggregation from authoritative sources (for each project, we determine the list of "authorities");
  • Marketplace, and logistics automation, as well as internal transaction arbitrage - we can turn your project into an analog of Aliexpress;
  • Smart contracts and "safe transactions," internal arbitration service;
  • A robust internal mail server provides automation of sending messages and mailings, checking the correctness of addresses, as well as overflow of mailboxes;
  • Protection systems against DDoS and other types of attacks with automatic notification of providers When malicious activity is detected, the system automatically generates and sends "violation mails" to data centers and Internet providers involved in the attack. By the way, X Networks owns testddos.com service to test large websites for load resistance;
  • Modules for interaction with SMS and phone services;
  • Account protection system against hacking, permission logging, and two-factor authentication. QSNE security system is one of the critical blocks of the platform;
  • Ability to manage user and community subscriptions;
  • Aggressive data caching (similar to Facebook);
  • Flexible privacy settings for users and their publications;
  • Powerful multithreaded search engine;
  • Creation of communities (open and closed pages, as well as professional and "by subscription");
  • Internal messenger (internal messaging system), integrated with QAIM, with artificial intelligence capabilities;
  • Antivirus verification of published content (SDK more than 20 antiviruses), intelligent pre-moderation;
  • End-to-end tagging of any content and data in the information flow;
  • Shortening link service;
  • Protection against bots and parsing (checking user actions). Registration of bots in the system is excluded (artificial intelligence technologies are used to analyze behavioral activity);
  • SMM tools;

After getting acquainted with the general features of the platform, additional questions usually arise. Here are the most popular topics:

  • How is data protected in the social network on the QSNE platform? In addition to the described protection system against targeted attacks, the platform has a multi-level mechanism for data protection and security compliance with OWASP standards. Personal data protection includes data encryption, device access analysis, and two-factor authentication.

Considerable attention is protecting content from misuse. Internal pages of projects within the platform are protected from automated parsing, search, and copying systems; for example, the pages of xnetworks.ru are protected from automatic parsing.

  • Where are the servers located? For such high-load projects as social networks, we organize CDN. Each project needs a particular infrastructure to ensure the high reliability and speed of project applications for audiences worldwide. Together with partners and customers, we coordinate the topology of the project, taking into account its characteristics, reliability and safety requirements, legislative requirements of specific countries. We can create the appropriate infrastructure or rent our resources The decision depends on economic feasibility and ease of support in one case or another. Our distributed infrastructure has servers located in highly reliable data centers in the USA, Singapore, Germany, the Netherlands, Finland, Russia.

  • What is the cost of maintaining a social network, considering the rental of server equipment? We create horizontally scaling projects; there is no need to reserve excess capacity for a small audience at the stage of launching a social network. The QSNE platform allows you to scale the infrastructure following the dynamics of project growth. Given the excellent optimization of the software used and storage methods, an average of 1 project cluster requires three servers. On average, you need 2 + 1 clusters for every ten million daily users (each user generates more than 100 backend requests on average). The cost of renting 1 cluster is about $1,000 per month. You can save money and rent X Networks cloud infrastructure instead of your clusters. In any case, the technical costs of such projects pay off by monetizing advertising and monetizing internal services.

  • Is it possible to maintain and develop a social network without the participation of X Networks? All our solutions are open source, so the answer is yes. But in practice, this is not always beneficial to our partners because it requires highly qualified specialists in high-load projects and the technology stack used. Therefore, there are two options for cooperation. We can train and form your team to work with the project in the first case. In another case, we continue to maintain and develop the project with you. The latter option is most profitable in terms of "synergy" because our solutions are constantly improving, and the cost of maintenance can be more favorable than maintaining a separate team.

  • What is the subject of intellectual property due to work on creating a social network? Although the QSNE social networking platform itself belongs to X Networks, the ultimate object of intellectual property is your unique social network itself. This intellectual property will already belong to you. But your license agreement must contain a list of all the software used to create it, including our platform. We will help you draw up a license agreement correctly and register your intellectual property object.

  • Why does it take so long to develop a social network? Firstly, the QSNE platform is not a ready-made social network but a framework for creating high-load projects, that is, a set of tools to build each social network. Each social network is unique and has unique characteristics. Secondly, the complexity of the development initially depends on the design of the project. Each social network has its GUI and unique style - all this requires many working hours. Thirdly, developing the web, API, server-side, and applications is a step-by-step process, not simultaneous.

  • How much does it cost to create a social network? It may vary depending on the project's complexity and the unique features you would like to implement. For initial understanding, you may use a simple calculator. We also offer you to evaluate the unique opportunity to reduce the cost of creating and maintaining when jointly owning a project. For a more accurate assessment, don't hesitate to contact X Networks.

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