Hm, it's not possible to turn this off but why would you want to turn this off? It's one of the core elements of EasySocial

I'm toying w/ the idea as the ES interface is so similar to Facebook I think it can turn users off...The idea would be that we have all the group functionality but not the FB look...make sense?

Hm, I guess you could still turn it off with css but your profile / dashboard page would be close to meaningless :|

To be honest, the core of social networks has always been activity streams. The same goes with Friendster, Twitter, LinkedIn and etc. I think it is unfair that you say ES looks similar to Facebook but rather I think Facebook looks similar to a social network is more appropriate.

I'm not trying to bash ES, it's just that FB is the norm unfortunately that people associate social networks by - so trying to get people to move past the familiar look of FB is challenging...

Hm, no I am not saying that you are bashing EasySocial but this is a statement that most people thinks.

The term "social network" isn't owned by Facebook so I guess that is something that you could consider. You are already doing something different by offering feature sets that is different than Facebook and that is your site's functionality and purpose

I agree and content/topic should be the uniqueness of any social network...I'm just trying to change the look more as we get comments all the time about how similar it looks to facebook.

I do think your site is getting there already. This is something which I observed with most site owners. They are trying their best to update their site to the best ever and wait for users to start pouring in. That is unfortunately not something that will happen.

You would need to start generating more contents and leads to your site. Once you get more leads to your site from search engines, start planning ahead.

Given if I had the opportunity to build a social network, this is what I would personally do:

1. Buy EasySocial because it is so cheap (rather than hiring someone to develop from scratch)

2. Start generating leads and contents on your site.

3. Start profiling your target audience and see what they like to do.

4. As soon as you have more target audience, you need to find ways to monetize from your users. Nothing is free, you have to pay for your hosting renewals, EasySocial renewals, domain renewals and etc.

5. When you start getting in more revenue, with the plans you have, contract someone to build on top of EasySocial (Or you could contract us if you wish)

all good advice

Thanks