WordPress Leaps Into Social Networking With BuddyPress 1.0
Automattic, the company behind WordPress, is moving into social networking, with the 1.0 launch of BuddyPress, an installable, open source software platform that runs on your own website. The software is freely available, and can be downloaded from BuddyPress.org.
The move comes more than a year after WordPress acquired BuddyPress, which at the time was essentially a series of plugins for adding social features to your WordPress blog. Today, it describes itself as “a suite of WordPress plugins and themes” that includes a fairly thorough set of features, like activity streams, groups, and forums.
What exactly is the need for yet another social networking platform at this stage in the game? Automattic founder Matt Mullenweg writes about it on the WordPress development blog. “I don’t think BuddyPress will be something you use instead of your existing social networks … but if you wanted to start something new maybe with more control, friendlier terms of service, or just something customized and tweaked to fit exactly into your existing site, then BuddyPress is a great framework to use,” he says.
And I agree – I don’t think it’s for everybody, including every type of blog publisher. Between tools like Disqus (which we use here on Mashable), Google Friend Connect, and MyBlogLog, there are already a lot of ways to add community to your blog. Not to mention, your blog needs to have a fairly significant following and passionate fanbase to make an entire social network successful, let alone a few simple cut and paste social networking widgets.
That said, if there is anyone that can make it work, it’s Automattic, who already powers more of the top 100 blogs in the world than anyone else. Some of those, as well as other popular blogs hungry for more page views, may very well be looking for a solution like BuddyPress, that can keep readers on their sites for longer, engaging both around the content and with each other.
Reviews: Disqus, Mashable, WordPress
Tags: automattic, BuddyPress, social networking, Wordpress
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