BuddyPress has a trial site in which you can sign up for an account and give it a test run, much like the folks at Curverider did many months ago. It gives everyone an opportunity to experience the user interface. I signed up for an account and gave it a quick test drive. I will look deeper into the details over time. This is an overview of the registration, progile, and the blogs.
Going to testbp.org presents the following screen:
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Click on of the registration links to set up an account. You are then prompted to give a username, email address, reply to a captcha and to provide some profile details including an avatar. You are also given the option of just creating an account, or an account with a blog.
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If you selected the option to create a blog, you are prompted to give a subdomain and title for the blog, and have the option of allowing search engines to index the site or not.
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Next you are prompted to look for an email to activate your new account. Once you activvate your account, you are assigned a password and asked to crop your avatar. Once you log in, your are brought to your profile page.
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Notice the navigation on the left side displaying menu options, the submenus in the next column. Clicking on the “Blogs” option brings up a new submenu. Note the ability to create additional blogs.
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When you click on your blog, up comes something that should look very familiar to WordPress users:
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If you click on the site admin link, you are brought to the familiar WordPress 2.7 blog interface.
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As in WordPress you can customize the look using themes.
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Overall, with BuddyPress, the blogs have an individual identity outside of the BuddyPress installation in that they have an independent subdomain, and that they can be customized like any other blog.
Clearly, Elgg and BuddyPress are very different. While this is more of an overview than a comparison, it is easy for one familiar with Elgg to see that these two packages take very different approaches to what might appear the same when one simply looks at a list of features.
I plan to overview more BuddyPress user features in the future and look forward to a discussion of the merits of each.
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Tags: buddypress, Elgg, wordpress, wordpressmu
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I also look forward to your discussion. I am just learning what community building is, and what role software plays. First intuition says the greeting page is critical. It must have an open and welcoming feeling, with a clear sense of how each of the components fit in and how to navigate. The Buddy Press website has that feel.
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What about uploading pictures and creating albums? I saw on their screenshots bp has this feature though I couldn’t find it on testbp.
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Also looking forward to hearing more about Buddy Press. I tried to install it the other day and got frustrated the Wordpress Mu (which is required). It looks great though.
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Excellent overview, glad to see their will be a number of us thinking this through for education. I’m exciting by the potential, and while I don;t want to get to pumped yet, it seems like an excellent open source solution to the likes of Facebook for an academic community. And the fact that it lays this all on top of WPMu means our community of bloggers at UMW just have that many more ways to discover wants going on with our academic publishing platform.
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I wouldn’t get too excited as Mu hasn’t released version 2.7 and the bbpress that allows for forums version 1 is still in alpha.
Drupal is another that is worth evaluating as well.
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I’m in no real hurry. I have a WPMU installation. When 2.7 is stable, I’ll upgrade to it. Then I might test drive a component or two.
I agree it is probably not as close to primetime as I initially believed (now that I am digging deeper).
Nonetheless, adding these functionalities upon a platform with which I am so familiar makes BP very interesting.
Drupal–I keep meaning to delve into it.
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Tradenet,
I have to say it, for all the hype around Drupal, I find it really doesn;t get to the essence of a distributed community site. Drupal can do everything this combination can, but it also depends on a rather clunky block model, and overly complicated administrative backend. Drupal is fine, but the difference here is the dynamic subdomains for wpmu, and the ability to simply map all this functionality on top of these options. In the end, WPMu is far more like the open web than Drupal. The Achilles heel for Drupal is the way it creates nodes that are ultimatel premised on permissions, and this is where its CMS beginnings make it far less aesthetically pleasing and user friendly, which in my mind kills it.
Additionally, I think the idea that bbPress is in beta and WPMu is not released yet is a non-issue. WPMu 2.7 will be out in January, and now that there is some excitement and serious testing around bbPress 1.0. I think the stable version is really not too far off at all. Additionally, I haven’t had too many problems at all running them both from trunk and alpha, which for me is a great sign. Oh yeah, did I mention Drupal is a rabbit hole?
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Jim Jim Jim, I didn’t say Drupal was the be all or end all. But another platform to consider. Have a look at: http://teamsugar.com/
I think that’s a good example of a social network built around the druapl engine. Some people may not want to make available “dynamic sub-domains”.Drupal has a very active development community. That’s what I look at.
As far as v.2.7 WPMu is concerned it up to Donncha. Saying January is merely speculation on your part. Further BBPress is in alpha release NOT beta.
Frankly I find that above cocktail ie. WPMu/Buddypress/BBPress all to unwieldy as far as security is concerned.
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Tradenet,
Fair enough, and I know some good folks working on Drupal, I just don’t think it frames an experience were a user can truly control his or her own space. And for me that makes all the difference. As to the security, well that is always a concern with any application, and if the merging of the three is unstable now (which it definitely is) I’m betting it won’t be for long.
As to Donncha’s updating WPMu to 2.7, he has already been updating the trac trunk and logging tickets. And given the way things have been going with development over the last two years, January is not just a guess—but a very great likelihood. Do you think Donncha is just going to stop at 2.6.5? I think you would harder pressed to establish why that is the case, rather than the alternative.
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Well I just know how the “(Russian) Spam Cadets” just LOVED (LOVES) WPMu.
Yeah, Donncha has been updating the trunk. But I never hold my breath….it will be released some time after the New Year. Putting dates on things (in the open source world) is mere speculation, IMHO.
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The Spam Cadets just love WordPress in general. Big target!
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@Tradenet: I’ve seen the Teamsugar.com website and I have to agree that it IS a great example of Drupal. However, I read the initial posting on Drupal.org of the main developer of teamsugar. From my understanding, that site was built and is currently maintained by full time developers. While some companeis may be able to do that, the typical user out there simply just can’t afford to hire developers to build something that in-depth. And without being a programmer or developer, most people will definitely not be able to build, or manage something *anywhere* close to that site. I believe currently Teamsugar.com is still running on a very early version of Drupal, like 4 or 5 or something. So there’s is extensive programming involved in that site.
Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE Drupal and I would love for my community to be built off of it, but I don’t want to bring in a developer to do that at this point, it doesn’t make sense for my business. But I do think Drupal is one hell of a platfotm to build off it, especially when you consider it can do nearly everything you would need it to do, plus it has integration with many applications, including openid, facebook connect, Sugarcrm, and nearly anything else you can think of. The problem is it’s too difficult for the typical user to take advantage of.
Enter BuddyPress. BP is one hell of an out-of-the-box solution and I’m so excited to see where the idea goes. The combination of having one of the best blogging platforms out there, with a great community of developers, and adding social networking in the mix is a formula for success. At the rate that WP is going, BP might be one heck of a solution besides using Drupal. You can follow the install instructions for WP and BP and have a social network up and running within 15 minutes that looks as good as http://testbp.org, that’s IMPRESSIVE. Kudos to the developers.
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The true dual dynamics (Batman and Robin) would be:
Elgg + or WPMU
Elgg + Lyceum (http://lyceum.ibiblio.org/)Buddypress is horrible, I use instead of elgg only because of WPMU.
We will integrate the Elgg to WPMU or the Lyceum, for the mod blog Elgg become a super blog
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Christiano–
I look forward to seeing your mods. Using WPMU, that interests me most.
I think BuddyPress does what it does as is the case with Elgg. I think they meet different needs and do things quite differently.
Choice is a good thing.
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Have been working with wpmu + bp + bbp for three days, mostly installing and reinstalling. Much is solid here, with a great bunch of developers and visionaries. It will eventually be solid. Don’t know if I can overcome my concerns about the central blog bias – but suspect I can. These are good people and I look forward to working with them.
Elgg may be a better way. Is the development community going to follow through? WPMU has such a strong following, isn’t it more likely to succeed? I look forward to your answers and humbly ask for your input.
Meanwhile, Ning has it all, does it all, and I don’t have to spend many days struggling to make it work. I can focus on community building and not software building.
Terry
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I strongly believe the development community will follow through.
The two packages are so different, I don’t think one will survive at the expense of the other. In my judgment, they both have their place as neither is a panacea.
We’ve talked about Ning–so you know how I feel. I’m a DIY type and will always be so. To me data control is extremely important. It will be interesting to see how many of these commercial free sites will remain standing at the end of 2009.
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Community building is where it is at. So good luck to all of these projects.
I suspect most of you are approaching this from an educational institution/classroom focus. I am focusing on drawing in potential learners from the outside world, helping them access and grow from Open Education Resources. Another side is to take these incredible resources to the masses, throughout the world. So, I am struggling with how to do that. These alternative platforms, with their different approaches, are helping me build a strategy.
This discussion has been very helpful and we will surely have more to contribute down the road.
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Terry–
You are right in that I am focused on the K12 implementation; although, many here are not. On the other hand, I came to this through application outside of education and continue to do so.
I have used these tools as a user for many many years. About three years ago, I discovered how great these tools were to implement and administrate. I was genuinely stunned that almost anyone can create a discussion forum, wiki, blog, or even a shopping cart with ease and at little expense.
One of my missions in life has been to spread the word. Best of luck with your endeavor!
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Thanks Steve, and good luck in your endeavor. You have certainly helped me.
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I agree. Plus it’s (Ning) too expensive IMHO.
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Ning is not open-source. What about socialengine.net?
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Socialengine.net? Open your wallet.
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Think about the required time for setting up Elgg and multiply it for your fees, it could be less expensive than you think. I think that the problem is not the money, it is the fact that, If I’m not wrong, you can’t easily modify the script.
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Yes that and the money. No matter how you slice it. You still have to take the time (and money) to set up a script. Paid or otherwise.
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Steve,
Review, socialengine.net please.
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I Like both elgg + buddypress ..but BP is in beta stage at the mo therefore you can’t kill it yet cos there’s no album & stats plugin.
Just like when elgg started out!
With BP you can use any wordpress theme as home page with the BP plugins.
elgg is good but lacks the wordpress maybe one day a bridge is created for it.
Horses for courses !
This work by Stephen J O’Connor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
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