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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.

115 replies on “Backing BuddyPress”

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. 🙂

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

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.

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 😉

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

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.

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!

[…] WordPress, announced today that a social networking element is being developed for WordPress.  He made the announcement on his personal blog.  He didn’t give too many details other than these: Some of you may remember when I wrote […]

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 )

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

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…

[…] 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.(leer más…) […]

[…] Dal proprio blog personale Matt Mullenweg, l’ideatore di WordPress, annuncia che Automattic ha appena dato vita ad un nuovo progetto denominato BuddyPress, un progetto open source che trasformerà la piattaforma WordPress (MU) anche in una piattaforma di social networking. Il progetto BuddyPress sarà guidato da Andy Peatling, il quale in precedenza era stato il creatore di ChickSpeak, un social network basato sulla piattaforma WordPress MU, ed il quale ora si è appena unito allo Automattic team. "È chiaro che il futuro è sociale" dichiara Matt Mullenweg all’interno del proprio annuncio, ed è altrettanto chiaro che "le connesssioni sono la chiave", inoltre "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". WordPress si appresta quindi a diventare anche uno strumento per la creazione di social networks. […]

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?

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

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. 🙂

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…)

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

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.

[…] the last commit was 2 days old! And the buddypress upcoming theme looks wonderful! And the creator of Buddypress, Andy Peatling, has been hired by WordPress guy Matt to work full time on Buddypress in March 2008, so this is great […]

[…] Well, the rumours are confirmed now. BuddyPress is going to be available for single user WordPress installs, later this year. The news has been confirmed by Andy Peatling, the lead developer behind BuddyPress, whom Automattic (the parent company behind WordPress) recruited to build BuddyPress. […]

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