Hello people,

It’s been a while since i posted here.

I just had this great idea, and im over excited at the moment.

A Social Network using bbpress/wordpress mu.

THE BIG Q – Can it be done?

Im not a developer or designer or anything. But look here.

What do i mean by a social network? It would be more of a “professional” one. You can view examples here http://www.cafemom.com/ and http://www.gooruze.com/.

The 2 biggest sections are forums and blogs. Each member would have a blog, and there would be a forum for everyone.

So here:

[1] Each person has a blog. This is using wordpress mu.

[2] Forums. This is using bbpress.

[3] Profile picture is your avatar. But can i have some of the avatars of the members on the front page like this http://microblogr.com/ and http://www.gooruze.com/ ?

[4] A recent activity section, where it shows all the recent activities of all the members, ie; blog posts, forum posts, and comments on blogs. Can this be done?

[6] The biggest question is this – Can the same login be used for all this? Is this what you call wordpress integration with bbpress?

[7] Private messaging. This can be done with bbpress.

[8] Groups. Can this be done?

[9] AND THE BIGGEST OF ALL – Can “friends” be made for a member, where you click his/her profile and friends are listed?

Would you think this would be overtly expensive? How much do you think it can be done for, with a nice clean simple design like this http://dfckr.com/?

***OR***

Or, shall forget about all this and get a free social network like this http://www.adgabber.com/ from http://www.ning.com ?

It just seems too bulky, and i won’t be able to customize it(i mean me pay someone do it). Only the theme would be customizable.

Thanks a lot everyone.

[@talbina Member 17 years ago]

Come on in guys .

[@null Member 17 years ago]

[7] Private messaging. This can be done with bbpress.

Yes, there is a plugin for this

[8] Groups. Can this be done?

Not yet (put it on trac as request). There is a way with an plugin I believe. Make a new group (e.g. like moderators) and put your people in it.

[9] AND THE BIGGEST OF ALL – Can “friends” be made for a member, where you click his/her profile and friends are listed?

I was working on a plugin that does this, but I got stuck with it, so it’s back on the selve for now.

Can’t help you with the other questions

Null

[@trent Member 17 years ago]

#1) This is simple enough as MU is built for that.

#2) If you are talking about each member having their own bbPress forum as well in #2, I would suggest that would be a massive problem. If you just mean having them using a single forum, I think this can be done.

#3) Avatars can be down with many plugins you can find in these forums or over at https://bbpress.org/plugins/ . Combining with MU might be a little difficult or require a plugin. I would suggest looking around to see if anyone on MU has come up with a solution already. That or use Gravatar

#4) Combination of plugins and RSS feed grabbers could do that without very much hassle. What is written already might be sufficient from the plugins area, but a couple different database requests would make new plugins for this quickly I am sure.

#5) You didn’t have one

#6) People out there have successfully integrated bbPress and WordPressMU logins, but you might need to search a bit over at http://mu.wordpress.com/forums/ as well for the answer It also depends on your answer to #2 though…..

#7) You already know the answer and Null helped with the others.

Trent

[@talbina Member 17 years ago]

Thanks a lot guys. I really appreciate it.

What are you guys waiting for? Get cracking. (joking). How much do you guys think this would cost me? I know, it’s something you cant predict right now. I dont know any development/design, so i cant predict anything at all. Maybe 1000, 2000, 3000? More than 3000?

But seriously, why doesnt Matt introduce an open source social networking software?

Im not actually asking so i can get my hands on it. Its an analyst’s perspective.

Im also very interested in finding out why WordPress has been so successful, and why other blog softwares might not have been as succesful. I believe it has to do a lot with the “corporate image” of wordpress/automattic and the love they have for their community.

[@jethrokapinksy Member 16 years, 9 months ago]

you meant the “anti-corporate image”? that’s what i really like.

[@beaulebens Participant 16 years, 9 months ago]

@talbina – Automattic just hired the developer of BuddyPress (www.buddtpress.com), which is basically what you’re asking for, minus bbPress. So they are thinking somewhere along the lines of what you’re saying

Needless to say it’s not much of a leap to take what comes of BuddyPress (a solid social networking core) and integrate that with bbPress to add the forums element (assuming BuddyPress doesn’t move in that direction itself, which is quite possible).