Fresh out of WordCamp San Francisco, Mashable has published an interview they conducted with Matt Mullenweg. Within this interview, Matt talks about the demise of Ning and how BuddyPress is a nice alternative, the WordPress foundation, and how the PressThis bookmarklet will eventually compete with the one Tumblr has. Matt recognizes that there is still some friction between using PressThis and publishing content. Tumblr has mastered this technique and is one of the trademark features of the publishing service. Ever since I’ve stopped using Tumblr, I’ve hoped for the PressThis bookmarklet to mimic the way Tumblr does it. It’s still not there yet. Any idea on how the publishing process from PressThis could be smoother?
Users of Ning who are upset about the recent changes that have taken place regarding the service now have at least one avenue to take. Thanks to Boone B. Gorges, Ning users can now use a special plugin that will transfer both users and their custom profile data. This migration plugin is free of charge. John James Jacoby has also mentioned that people are standing by in the BuddyPress.org support forums to help those that decide to make the migration from Ning to BuddyPress.
I can’t help but think about the time MovableType decided to go from free to a piece of paid software which created a backlash so large, it was the tipping point for the WordPress.org software. I can’t say whether that is what is happening here but it sure would be interesting to time travel into the future and see if this event has a similar effect for BuddyPress.
Much has been said about Ning already but I still find what they did to their free userbase as wrong. It would have been much better to just cut off free registrations and work with the userbase they already had. Instead, they have all of a sudden become a gated community and have told everyone that hasn’t paid that if they don’t pay, to get out. A shame that a company would do that to the very userbase that put them on the map. However, Ning is a great case study into one of the best features of BuddyPress. The ability to run your own network, to own your data, to control what happens to it without the middle man.
Marshall who goes by the user name MrMaz in the BuddyPress community has been appointed the newest member of the BuddyPress core team. Marshall will be focusing on the BuddyPress API which will make the lives of developers easier to seamlessly integrate their plugins into BuddyPress. His work will be slated for release in 1.4 and onward. Marshall has a successful BuddyPress plugin called BuddyPress Links which adds rich media sharing. How this plugin integrates into BuddyPress as if it’s a part of the core was a sure sign that Marshall knows what he’s doing and was one of the major reasons why he was asked to join the team.
Although the announcement has not yet been published on the BuddyPress blog, the release history page on the site has been updated to show the changes in version 1.2.2. A number of bugs have been fixed such as:
Fixed inconsistencies with new account activation between WordPress MU and standard WP. All new accounts must now be activated to confirm a valid email is being used.
Fixed problems with table generation when MySQL strict mode is enabled.
Fixed issues when visiting pages with restricted access via notification emails when the user is not logged in.
Fixed bugs with saving empty valued profile fields with multiple options, even when they are not required fields.
Hot off the press is the announcement of the BuddyPress template packs plugin. This plugin makes it very easy to use your current theme with BuddyPress on a single site install of WordPress instead of having to use the default BuddyPress theme. Kudos to Andy Peatling for making it even easier for people to use BuddyPress without reconfiguring their entire site. Note that the template pack won’t do anything unless you have BuddyPress installed.
Andy Peatling has announced on the official BuddyPress development blog that version 1.2 is now available to the public. This version is a milestone because BuddyPress can now be used on standard WordPress installations whereas before, you needed to have WordPress MU installed. Other goodies that 1.2 offers include:
Simplified Install Process – This version only uses three steps and has done away with the manual installation routine.
New Default Themes – Andy Peatling must have drank the default theme kool-aid as 1.2 sports a new, out of the box look.
Activity Streams – Activity streams have been revamped. Each activity stream item has it’s own permalink making bookmarking or saving the event much easier. Any user can comment on activity across the site with support for threaded conversations. You can also publish events to a group activity stream or site wide while also marking activity items as favorites.
If you don’t want to test BuddyPress by installing it on a live or local site, take a gander at the BuddyPress Test drive website which is using the latest version.
Congratulations to Andy Peatling, John James Jacoby and everyone who contributed to the release. It seems like it was only yesterday when 1.0 was released where the most requested feature was support for standard WordPress installations. Now that BuddyPress can be used on regular WordPress sites, expect to see BuddyPress empowering the social nature of WordPress sites all across the web.
There is a new framework in town, this one is called BuddyMattic. Developed by Ron Rennick with help from Daisy Olsen, BuddyMattic is a theme framework based on Thematic that can be used on WordPress, WordPress MU, and BuddyPress. The unique feature of this theme is that BuddyPress functionality is included in the framework and is activated whenever BuddyPress is detected. I had the chance to ask Ron a few questions regarding BuddyMattic.
The designs for BuddyMatic, do they have to be child themes based on Thematic?
No, buddymatic includes a sample Buddymatic child theme and child themes can be created by changing the sample child theme. For example, in creating the Coffee with Friends child theme that is included with Buddymatic, Daisy Olsen started with the Buddymatic sample child theme.
In a WordPress or WordPress MU blog without BuddyPress enabled, Buddymatic and Thematic are interchangeable and any child theme can be switched from one to the other by changing references to the template (and any includes) from one to the other.
Could you go into a little more detail regarding the BuddyPress detection/activation and how the design incorporates that functionality?
Buddymatic relies entirely on WordPress / BuddyPress hooks & templates to add the BuddyPress functionality. In every function added via hooks, there is a check to see if BuddyPress is active.
Anytime BuddyPress updates, does that mean the framework has to be updated as well?
Generally, no. An example of where a new version might be required would be custom content support in WordPress themes when that functionality is added in 2.9. That type of change should only be on major releases of WordPress and/or BuddyPress.
For those using BuddyPress and having a hard time coming across decent free themes for the project you’re in luck. A new site has launched called FreebpThemes.com which so far contains six different themes for BuddyPress. Out of the choices provided, Avenue K9 looks to be my favorite from a design perspective. It’s pretty easy to figure out who is behind the site but it’s nice to see a dedicated person developing and releasing BuddyPress themes for free. I’d say sooner rather than later, BuddyPress will have a theme repository that mimics the one for WordPress.
There is some great news for those involved with or following the BuddyPress project. Andy Peatling announced today on the development blog that John James Jacoby aka jjj has been added to the BuddyPress core development team which brings the total to two members. Anytime I’ve done a show about BuddyPress or needed to ask a question or two in the BuddyPress IRC channel, John has been around to listen or try to push me in the right direction. Congrats to him for being added to the core team for one heck of a project. This is a huge step forward allowing Andy to remove some of the development weight off his shoulders.
This episode of WordPress weekly was a little bit different than some of the previous episodes in that we discussed the topic of Hyperlocal websites and using BuddyPress to power them. I had two guests on the air with me to discuss this topic. The first was Ted Mann who runs InJersey.com. A hyperlocal website for New Jersey that is powered by BuddyPress. My other guest was Jeff Lee who is just starting to get his hyperlocal site off the ground at CityZombie.com. It was great getting to talk about these hyperlocal news sites and why they will be springing up left and right from the point where Newspapers left off.
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Fresh out of WordCamp San Francisco, Mashable has published an interview they conducted with Matt Mullenweg. Within this interview, Matt talks about the demise of Ning and how BuddyPress is a nice alternative, the WordPress foundation, and how the PressThis bookmarklet will eventually compete with the one Tumblr has. Matt recognizes that there is still some friction between using PressThis and publishing content. Tumblr has mastered this technique and is one of the trademark features of the publishing service. Ever since I’ve stopped using Tumblr, I’ve hoped for the PressThis bookmarklet to mimic the way Tumblr does it. It’s still not there yet. Any idea on how the publishing process from PressThis could be smoother?
This episode of WordPress weekly was a little bit different than some of the previous episodes in that we discussed the topic of Hyperlocal websites and using BuddyPress to power them. I had two guests on the air with me to discuss this topic. The first was Ted Mann who runs