BuddyPress Social Networks

BuddyPress is a series of plug-ins that allows you to turn a Wordpress MU instillation into a fully functional social network. As more companies move into the social networking platform space, Automattic (the makers of BuddyPress) are surely looking to stay on top of these trends as key components to their product future.

The idea of BuddyPress is to take a standard vanilla installation of WordPress MU and turn it into something that represents more of a community building tool, or niche social network. BuddyPress is a set of WordPress MU specific plugins. Each plugin adds a functionality to WordPress. BuddyPress also has a core plugin that all other plugins require, it contains shared functions and performs the basic modifications to the WordPress MU interface.

BuddyPress will move the main focus of WordPress MU away from blogs, and onto the actual member profile. However, members can still blog and use all the blogging features they would normally expect from WordPress. A BuddyPress installation consists of a community home page, which could either be an blog, or an activity stream from the community.

If you have you been looking to start a Social Networking site or maybe already own a wordpress blog and would like more social networking related features for your visitors, BuddyPress could be a great choice. Again, BuddyPress uses Wordpress MU along with a selection of plugins to transform Wordpress into a fully featured social network for your members.

When using the default theme, BuddyPress will move the main focus of WordPress MU away from blogs, and onto the actual member profile. However, members can still blog and use all the blogging features they would normally expect from WordPress. When someone uses BuddyPress, they will be going there to build or enhance their profile first, and write something on their blog second. The blog is turned into another component of BuddyPress. It should be noted that removing the blog as the main focus is all done in the theme files. Other themes could keep the blog as the focus and still make full use of other components.

A BuddyPress installation will consist of a main community home page, which could either be an actual blog, or a syndication of all the activity of the community members.

The standard features of BuddyPress are:

* Extended Profiles
* Personal Blog
* Private Messaging
* Friends
* Groups
* The Wire
* Status Updates
* Albums

As each one is a separate plugin, there is no reason why site admins can’t pick and choose which components they want and don’t want. There is also no reason why additional components couldn’t be written, or other existing WordPress plugins be used alongside.