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Filed under: WordPress, WordPress MU | Tags: Andy Peatling, BuddyPress (5), social networks (2) | March 4th, 2008
Backing BuddyPress
Some of you may remember when I wrote about Chickspeak, a WordPress MU-based social network. Andy Peatling, the fellow behind it, later decided to recreate the work he had done as an Open Source effort he called BuddyPress. And it was good.
Today I’m happy to announce that Andy has joined Automattic full-time and we’ll be taking the BuddyPress project under our wing. We will grow it and support it the same way we support WordPress, MU, bbPress, Akismet, and more.
It’s clear that the future is social. Connections are key. WordPress MU is a platform which has shown itself to be able to operate at Internet-scale and with BuddyPress we can make it friendlier. Someday, perhaps, the world will have a truly Free and Open Source alternative to the walled gardens and open-only-in-API platforms that currently dominate our social landscape.
See also: DiSo, GigaOM, Techcrunch, Mashable, Techvibes.
Matt Mullenweg is one of PC World’s Top 50 People on the Web, Inc.com’s 30 under 30, and Business Week’s 25 Most Influential People on the Web. 
drew olanoff | March 4th, 2008 @ 12:43 pm |
this is awesome news matt, very exciting. social is where it’s at and your rapid expansion is schweet!
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Mike Robinson | March 4th, 2008 @ 12:57 pm |
Congrats to Andy and Automattic! Looking forward to seeing what comes of this
Evan | March 4th, 2008 @ 1:20 pm |
Any info at all on any sort of release for BuddyPress?
Matt | March 4th, 2008 @ 1:21 pm |
Evan, we’re moving servers so took the downloads down temporarily, it’ll be back up once we get the new infrastructure going.
Charlie Stout | March 4th, 2008 @ 1:48 pm |
Heck yes. I hope you’ll have something to show us at Wordcamp Dallas!!!
Philippe de Chabot | March 4th, 2008 @ 1:51 pm |
That’s a real good news. I’d love to see BuddyPress finished as soon as possible. Andy has already done a great job and his releasing of the code was great. If he can now finish it that ’s awsome.
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Brendon Kozlowski | March 4th, 2008 @ 2:27 pm |
How would a website be able to be truly, completely open without an API? Even using microformats can only produce just so much information, when there’s even more (usually) required for sign-up to a service. …even then, you’d need a browser that supports micro-formats in some fashion… That sentence just made me think, and got me confused.
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Evan | March 4th, 2008 @ 2:59 pm |
Thanks for the info, Matt. It looks like a serious competitor to Drupal!
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pg | March 4th, 2008 @ 3:03 pm |
Matt, u say:
Someday, perhaps, the world will have a truly Free and Open Source alternative to the walled gardens and open-only-in-API platforms that currently dominate our social landscape.
As an FYI, drupal, 100% open source(drupal.org) has been doing it for a few years already.
PG
Matt | March 4th, 2008 @ 3:06 pm |
PG, I’m very familiar with Drupal and what it’s capable of — it’s a very powerful tool. I think that the change we’re hoping to see in the landscape is different enough that it warrants a separate project though.
BuddyPress is able to take advantage of the thousands of plugins and themes available for WordPress, as well as the scaling lessons we’ve learned in taking WordPress.com from nothing to one of the largest sites on the web.
Daniel Schildt | March 4th, 2008 @ 3:13 pm |
This is great news for many people who use WordPress-based sites. Nice to hear that this kind of things are under work by Automattic.
Ferran | March 4th, 2008 @ 3:22 pm |
Great news guys! I think it could be good time to make WP MU a little more near to perfection, not only as social platform but a perfect tool for multiblogging.
Great work with Wp 2.5, Wordpress as CMS for websites, with Gravatar, BBpress, now a Social Platform… very exciting moments around Wordpress… I’m glad to be a user/fan since WP 1.5
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Radikle | March 4th, 2008 @ 3:50 pm |
Great news! This is exciting about the turn to this application for SN. Looking forward to all that is OS and really soon on the horizon
Jeffro2pt0 | March 4th, 2008 @ 3:52 pm |
Hey this sounds like great news. Maybe this will convince a lot of people to stick it out with WordPress instead of moving to something like MT because of their social features.
Gary Taylor | March 4th, 2008 @ 4:01 pm |
It had occured to me that with WPMU and a few useful modules you could make pretty decent site along the lines of wht Facebook might have been (before the vampires, werewolves, pirates and advertising). The only thing my site needs now is a Wall… and that’s just an empty post with comments…
Good luck with it!
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brandon | March 4th, 2008 @ 4:32 pm |
This is great news. Exactly what my WPMU needs!
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Lori | March 4th, 2008 @ 5:28 pm |
Woohoo! Been wishing something like that existed since the early days of MU. You guys rock!
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Josh | March 4th, 2008 @ 6:12 pm |
Great news! I’ve been waiting for something like BuddyPress, so I’m glad to see that Automattic has picked up the developer and the project!
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m@ | March 4th, 2008 @ 8:16 pm |
Wow, that is really cool. Congrats all around. I can’t wait to see what comes out of this union.
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awflasher | March 4th, 2008 @ 11:08 pm |
It’s clear that the future is social.
Can’t agree more!
And WP is gonna be the best solution for the personal-show ( I don’t know how to describe it well in English, I just mean there isn’t any other better system that helps expressing yourself to the public )
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Fabian Schonholz | March 4th, 2008 @ 11:32 pm |
Matt:
Congrats in the talent acquisition. Also, I share your views about Open Source.
http://www.fabianschonholz.com/2007/08/28/why-opensource/
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Justin | March 5th, 2008 @ 1:16 am |
Excellent, I’ve been thinking about replacing an old LDU forum community for a while and have been tossing up between MU, Drupal, Ning or even phpBB3. This settles it – Wordpress Mu, bbPress and BuddyPress is the go
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BoltClock | March 5th, 2008 @ 2:13 am |
Congrats on this! I haven’t heard of BuddyPress until this post, but from this post I think it’s gonna turn out great. Though I’m not going to likely be running a social networking site…
Thejesh GN | March 5th, 2008 @ 2:18 am |
Thats cool.
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Steven Finch | March 5th, 2008 @ 4:56 am |
Hi Matt, I have posted a litte post over on my site, that I hope is worth reading. http://crenk.com/2008/03/05/wordpress-is-moving-into-the-social-networking-market/
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Scott O'Raw | March 5th, 2008 @ 5:17 am |
I am very excited by this. I hope that in the long run the world of blogging and social networking can merge so that blogs can essentially be their own social networks. This is certainly a step along the road to the idea of “Domain As Identity” that I wrote about last week: http://www.scottoraw.co.uk/journal/?p=54
Best of luck with this Matt.
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Colin | March 5th, 2008 @ 6:34 am |
Sounds good! More Wordpress community action is always a good thing.
pg | March 5th, 2008 @ 6:49 am |
Ok, good luck then! i hope that at some point there will be more bridges between open source projects like wordpress and drupal.
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chrisco | March 5th, 2008 @ 8:53 am |
Crank it out, guys… we will look at it / try it.
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nathandiehl | March 5th, 2008 @ 1:21 pm |
oh my…this is really cool news.
Thanks much. I look forward to what you guys do with WP MU. pretty sweet!
Bryan | March 5th, 2008 @ 1:30 pm |
This is fantastic news! I’ve been waiting for quality social networking software. No one can pull it off better than the WP folks! Can’t wait!
The question now is… how long?
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Alanna | March 5th, 2008 @ 9:16 pm |
Hi Matt, my boyfriend follows your blog and he wrote a nice comment to you. He used to be a moveable type guy until I dragged him to one of the wordpress parties years back. He was so impressed with you, he switched and never looked back. Just wanted to share. His post is here: http://fuzzyraygun.com/?p=598
Matt | March 6th, 2008 @ 12:07 am |
Alanna, tell him thanks! I appreciate it.
Marcel | March 6th, 2008 @ 2:42 am |
I love to hear this and looking forward to BuddyPress. Wow, what a great news!
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lambic | March 6th, 2008 @ 7:13 am |
If you trawl the interweb looking for WordPress installations, maybe you know about this already, but just in case: my wife recently got into scrapbooking and stamping, and one of the big guns in the stamping world is SplitCoast Stampers. Turns out they are using Wordpress MU for their blogs, here’s an example.
Nick | March 6th, 2008 @ 8:37 am |
Can’t wait for this!
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Swap | March 6th, 2008 @ 2:17 pm |
Matt, this is great news! I love the way you manage Automattic.
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Lis | March 7th, 2008 @ 8:02 am |
I can not wait for the completion of Buddy Press. I think it will totally change the future of WP. Many of the site I code for are looking for an integration of WP and a social network. I’m looking forward to the future release.
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Fruskio | March 13th, 2008 @ 9:29 am |
Hi Matt! Any updates about Buddypress?
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Bryan | March 17th, 2008 @ 5:10 pm |
We need Buddy Press info!
Carsten Reinke | March 18th, 2008 @ 12:19 am |
Is there a roadmap for Buddypress?
It would be nice to know what’s planned in the near future (I’m currently in the process of setting up a maybe-buddypress-like site, but have too little information for deciding which way to go…)
dalton | March 18th, 2008 @ 9:34 am |
Yes, I agree, information or a roadmap for BuddyPress would be very welcome indeed.
Francisco Perez | March 24th, 2008 @ 1:07 pm |
I’ve had this idea for a loooong time now, and ran into a lot of issues with it, I’m glad to see someone actually found a solution to it and that buddypress will be available as open source. The website I wanted to create is http://www.blogginforbrides.com and I have just started it.
Please keep me posted on the future of buddypress…
–
FHP
Sreejumon | March 26th, 2008 @ 12:48 pm |
Hello Matt,
Let us know if you have any release plan soon! I have been checking buddypress.org daily basis, but not able to see anything. At least the roadmap and timelines would be a great help to plan other activities.
Thanks
Sree
Marcel | March 28th, 2008 @ 1:55 am |
Yeah, I feel the same. I’ve got a great new project in mind and want to create it with BuddyPress. Please relase a roadmap, an alpha or beta release, that would be awesome.
coroijo | March 31st, 2008 @ 4:20 pm |
WOOHOOOOOOOOOOOO YESSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!
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