Firstly, Elgg is one of the sponsors of the Social Technology and Education conference being held at Harvard University, Cambridge. The conference has the following themes and is looking for speakers:

• A Survey of Social Tools and How They Work (Facebook, Twitter, Ning, Flickr, Elgg, etc)
• Case Studies: Social Networks in Schools
• Behavior Management Issues: acceptable use policies, privacy, vandalism, appropriate content, security and more
• Panel: "Co-opt or Compete?" Should schools embrace commercial tools or build their own infrastructure?
• Creating Communities of Learning: How to use tools to advance educational goals
• Technology for Teachers: A session explaining the basic technology terms that will help teachers who want to set up social tools without calling in computer support

Then, on the back of this conference, there is going to be an ElggCamp Boston, so, if you are interested in Elgg, please sign up and come along.

Well, quite a lot actually, certainly more than can be practically listed here, so I'll just mention what has happened recently.

Elgg development continues at a good pace and we hope to get a point release out soon. This release will address many issues and introduce some new functionality, much of which is detailed on the trac timeline.

We have some more new starters joining the team and I'll let them introduce themselves in their own time.

This is fantastic and means big things for the project.

Finally as Dave has also mentioned on his twitter account, there will be an ElggCamp Boston, held at Harvard on August 15th.

I'll be there giving a couple of talks, and it'd be good to meet some of you guys so I hope you can make it!

If you are interested in, or are, arranging an ElggCamp and would like it mentioned on this blog, send over any details (dave elgg com).

We plan on using this injection of capital to expand the technical team and develop a formal partner program to provide commercial support services, training and accreditation to development partners building networks on Elgg. We see strong demand for Elgg networks and are keen to afford supporters and members of the Elgg community with enhanced capability to market their services and promote Elgg as the preferred option for the development of social platforms, both internal and external.

We are delighted to announce that Leonard Lin will be joining the Elgg team on a consultancy basis to advise, and work, on Elgg scaling, authentication methods, code efficiency and direction. Leonard's vast experience gained through the development of upcoming.org, then as a senior hacker at Yahoo and recently as part of the Obama online team will be invaluable to the Elgg project.

The Elgg project is heading into a new phase which we are all very excited about.

Here are a couple of the new Elgg powered networks (If you’d like your network featured, please get in touch):

Archief - a network for architecture students at the PHL

Fusefly - is a social network connecting homeschoolers around the world

Social Up - Communities within Your Community

The Beer Run - create your own review of bars or clubs from your area

iberestudios - La mayor comunidad de aprendizaje y conocimiento de habla hispana

Urban Desire Radio

• System administrator
• Interface developer - must have an eye for detail and be experienced in PHP/Javascript/Ajax
• Experienced PHP developers – contract, part-time and full-time
• Business development manager - must have a track record of working with web based services

As we are a distributed team, remote working is not a problem.

If you are interested in any of these positions, please send an email, with your resume and covering letter to Dave Tosh (dave elgg com). If you are applying for the Interface developer position or one of the PHP developer roles, please include links to examples of your work.

We’re also seeking organizations, groups and individuals who would like to join the Elgg affiliate program. If you provide Elgg services and would like to find out more, get in touch dave elgg com.

Elgg 1.5 has been downloaded tens of thousands of times over the past three weeks, since release. With new networks springing up every day, here are a small sample.

Random:

• Classicrods - for classic car enthusiasts.
• Hapas - a community to share your individual stories about the multiracial Asian experience through words, pictures, videos, and collaboration.
• RailRefund - a space for disgruntled commuters.
• The Lab - a network for models and clients.
• Skydiving - a site for German skydivers.
• pbop.de - another German network, not really sure what it is about but it looks fun.
• MaestroZone - connect and share with other musicians in the world.
• theatregig - a free online community that connects theatre people in community, regional, academic and professional theatre – worldwide.
• Chukkest - is the exclusive online social network designed for those who love Polo ponies.

Education:

• c41pt.net - a Social Learning Network for Learning Professionals to discuss the use of social media and social learning.
• uTicked - social bookmarking for teachers.
• Université de Montréal - a Université de Montréal network.
• CMUOnet - a fully functional social networking system, connecting CMUO learners and creating communities of learning.

Professional:

• UnionBook - the social networking site for trade unionists.
• Tickerheads - a space for traders.
• Hedgehogs - the space for the hedge fund & investment community.
• International Process and Performance Institute - learn more about how we help organizations reduces their costs, increase their customer satisfaction, and improve their bottom line.

One of the fastest growing areas of Elgg adoption is for company Intranets, to help improve internal communication. As most are behind a firewall, there are no links to those networks. This is a space I think we are going to see expand over the coming year and for which Elgg is well positioned to make inroads. There are options such as SocialText, Jive and Yammer in the space already, however, Elgg brings a rich set of features to the mix and a growing open source community, making it an attractive option.

Elgg v1.5 has left the building. This release has a host of new features, improved performance and a brand new theme. We have also updated the Elgg website to coincide with the new release. The about page contains a series of new screenshots.

We would like to say thanks to Kam Low, Brett Profitt, Cash Costello, Steve O'Conner, Kevin Jardine and Milan Magudia for taking the time to help us test this latest release as well as everyone else in the community who reported bugs and suggested fixes.

If you would like to discuss the new release, find plugins and share your experience with other Elgg users, check out the upgraded Elgg community.