BuddyPress For Dummies E-Book

Lisa Sabin-Wilson

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2010

Seitenzahl: 341

Beschreibung

Use BuddyPress to create the ultimate site experience BuddyPress is a suite of free WordPress plugins and themes, each adding a distinct new feature. It contains all the features you would expect from WordPress, but it aims to let members socially interact. With this fun and friendly guide, you'll learn how to customize BuddyPress so that it matches the style of your Web site. You'll walk through the necessary steps for modifying and customizing BuddyPress themes and you'll discover how to extend BuddyPress through the use of addons and plugins. With BuddyPress, you'll be well on your way to creating the ultimate user experience on your site. * Shows you how to set up the WordPress foundation required to run BuddyPress * Walks you through installing BuddyPress on a WordPress-powered site * Explains the different BuddyPress components, including extended profiles, private messaging, friends, groups, the wire, activity streams, blog tracking, status updates, and more * Details ways to troubleshoot BuddyPress once it is up and running * Demonstrates how to extend BuddyPress through the use of addons and plugins Bring all your social community subscriptions together in BuddyPress!

Leseprobe

BuddyPress For Dummies ®

Table of Contents

Introduction

About This Book

Conventions Used in This Book

What You Are Not to Read

Foolish Assumptions

How This Book Is Organized

Icons Used in This Book

Where to Go From Here

Part I: Introducing BuddyPress

Chapter 1: A New Friend Named BuddyPress

Building a Social Community with BuddyPress

Why build a social community?

Types of people who build social communities

Discovering the Benefits of BuddyPress

WordPress as the foundation

BuddyPress is easy to use

BuddyPress is flexible to your needs

Extending BuddyPress capabilities

Taking part in the BuddyPress community

Chapter 2: Understanding WordPress Requirements

Understanding Web Site Development Tools

Understanding domain name extensions

Considering the cost of a domain name

Registering your domain name

Finding a Home for Your Blog

Understanding PHP and MySQL

Getting help with hosting WordPress

Dealing with disk space and bandwidth

Transferring Files from Point A to Point B

Working with WordPress

Setting up the WordPress MySQL database

Uploading the WordPress files

Web server configurations for WordPress MU

Running the WordPress install script

Chapter 3: Touring the WordPress Dashboard

Logging into WordPress

Getting Familiar with WordPress

Navigating the WordPress dashboard

Configuring the Site Admin options

Setting general site options

Part II: Getting Up and Running with BuddyPress

Chapter 4: Setting Up Base Camp

Installing BuddyPress

Using the automatic installation method

Installing BuddyPress manually

BuddyPress admin bar

Using Default BuddyPress Themes

Moving theme folders

Activating themes

Finding the BuddyPress Menu

Chapter 5: Configuring BuddyPress

Configuring the General Settings

Discovering BuddyPress Components

Activity Streams

Blog Tracking

bbPress Forums

Friends

Groups

Private Messaging

Extended Profiles

Setting up bbPress Forums

Setting up a new bbPress installation

Using an existing bbPress installation

Building Profile Groups and Fields

Adding new profile fields

Creating new profile groups

Part III: Understanding BuddyPress Features

Chapter 6: Exploring Your New Community

Signing Up as a New Member

New member registration

Activating a new member account

Navigating the Admin Bar

Exploring Your Profile

Activity

Profile

Blogs

Messages

Friends

Groups

Settings

Discovering Site Wide Activity, Directories, and Searches

Chapter 7: Enabling Blogs

Managing User Blogs in Your Community

Enabling user blog creation

Managing user blogs

Tracking Community Blog Activity

Publishing Blog Posts

Chapter 8: Using the Groups Feature

Enabling Groups and Forum Options

Participating in community groups

Finding out about a community group

Joining community groups

Joining the Discussion

Exploring the Groups Menu

Part IV: Customizing BuddyPress

Chapter 9: Default Theme and Widgets

Installing the Themes

Using BuddyPress Widgets

Displaying site wide activity on the Classic theme

Using the Members widget

Displaying community groups

Blog versus Community Widgets

Chapter 10: Finding and Installing Themes

Finding Free BuddyPress Themes

Downloading and Installing Themes

Activating a New Theme

Enabling a theme in WordPress MU

Activating a new theme

Chapter 11: Understanding Themes and Templates

Understanding Parent/Child Theme Relationships

Exploring the BuddyPress parent theme

Exploring the child theme

Creating a child theme folder

Using a custom CSS file in the child theme

Using your own images in the child theme

Modifying Parent Template Files

Using a WordPress Theme with BuddyPress

Chapter 12: Tweaking the Default Theme with CSS

Styling with CSS: The Basics

CSS selectors

Classes and IDs

CSS properties and values

Changing the Background Color

Using Your Own Logo in the Header

Changing Font Styles, Colors, and Sizes

Finding Additional CSS Resources

Part V: Extending BuddyPress

Chapter 13: Getting Plugged In with Plugins

Understanding What Plugins Are

Finding and Installing BuddyPress Plugins

Installing plugins using the Install Plugins interface

Installing plugins manually

Managing Plugin Options

Uninstalling Plugins

Understanding Open Source Concepts

Chapter 14: Integrating Popular Social Media

Discovering Popular Social Networks

Connecting BuddyPress and Facebook

Integrating Twitter

Part VI: The Part of Tens

Chapter 15: Ten Useful BuddyPress Plugins

BuddyPress Privacy Component

Featured Members Widget

Author Avatar List

BuddyPress Events Calendar

BuddyPress Geo

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) for BuddyPress

BuddyPress/Facebook Connect

BuddyPress-Kaltura Media Component

BuddyPress Stats

BuddyPress Welcome Pack

Chapter 16: Ten Free BuddyPress Themes

Avenue K9

BuddyPress Corporate

Bruce

BuddyPress Fun

Shouty

BuddyPress Community

Purple & Black

MuddyPress

New Yorker

BuddyPress Default Theme

The Future of BuddyPress Themes

Chapter 17: Ten Real World Examples of BuddyPress

BuddyPress

Nourish Network

WeEarth

We Heart This

GigaOM Pro

Flokka

Unstructure

Young People

VW TankWars

Tasty Kitchen

Appendix: Cutting Edge BuddyPress

Subscribe to BuddyPress.Org

Browsing BuddyPress forums

Browsing and using BuddyPress Trac

BuddyPress For Dummies®

by Lisa Sabin-Wilson

BuddyPress For Dummies®

Published byWiley Publishing, Inc.111 River St.Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774www.wiley.com

Copyright © 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

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About the Author

Lisa Sabin-Wilson is a creative designer and owner of E.Webscapes Design Studio (www.ewebscapes.com) and has worked hard at providing her clients with custom designed WordPress blogs and Web sites since 2003. Lisa is a frequent speaker at WordCamps and other national conferences, such as South by Southwest Interactive and meet ups local to her Southeastern Wisconsin home, like Milwaukee’s Web development group, Web414. Lisa is highly regarded as a WordPress expert who specializes in helping users take full control over their Web publishing efforts through the use of the WordPress platform. She reaches thousands of people worldwide with her WordPress services, skills, and experience.

Lisa is the author of the popular WordPress For Dummies, first published in 2007. Her experience and knowledge of BuddyPress came from the rapidly emerging popularity of the platform; as more and more of her own clients started requesting BuddyPress integration on their Web sites, Lisa had no choice but to dig right in and figure out what it was all about! She’s glad she did — it’s a dynamic addition to any WordPress-powered Web site.

Lisa operates a few blogs online, all of which are powered by WordPress. Her personal blog (lisasabin-wilson.com) has been online since February of 2002 and her design business, E.Webscapes (ewebscapes.com), has been online since 1999. She also operates a successful Web hosting service, BlogsAbout Hosting (blogsabout.com), which caters to blogs and bloggers on a global scale, with an emphasis on WordPress users.

When she is not designing, or consulting with her clients, you can usually find her either at her favorite coffee shop sipping espresso, on a mountaintop somewhere hitting the slopes with her family, or 100 feet beneath the ocean waters, scuba diving with her husband and swimming with the fishes.

Lisa is actively involved in online social communities and you can find her on Twitter: @LisaSabinWilson or Facebook at http://facebook.com/lisasabinwilson.

Dedication

My family deserves all of the credit, for their love, support, and encouragement. My husband, Chris Wilson, gets an extra mention for being my rock and my reliable sounding board.

Author’s Acknowledgments

When people use free and open software for community use, the people that spend countless hours and days developing the software sometimes get lost in the excitement. Because BuddyPress is incapable of running without the WordPress MU software, the first kudos go out to Matt Mullenweg, the founder of WordPress, and Donncha OCaoimh, the lead developer of the WordPress MU platform.

Andy Peatling is the lead developer of the BuddyPress project and has been the driving force behind development and community involvement. BuddyPress is truly a project driven by the community; Andy, and his team in the BuddyPress Forums (http://buddypress.org/forums), really does listen to user feedback, testers, and reports to improve existing features — and build new ones — for BuddyPress. Andy is also my technical editor for this book, so special thanks to him for keeping me on track.

To every WordPress and BuddyPress plugin developer and theme designer who donates his or her time, skills, and knowledge to provide the user community with invaluable tools that help us create dynamic Web sites, thank you a million times! And to the hundreds of volunteers and testers who destroy all those pesky pre-release bugs for each and every new version release — your time and efforts are so very appreciated.

Special thanks to Amy Fandrei, my acquisitions editor — an author could not ask for a better, or more supportive, publishing partner. Big thanks to Chris Morris, Brian Walls, and other editors from Wiley Publishing who were involved in this project for their support, assistance, and guidance.

To my family and friends, some of whom I have neglected during the process of writing this book, thank you for not abandoning me. Also, to my clients, many of whom showed incredible patience and encouragement during the months of writing these chapters.

Finally, thanks to my family — my husband, Chris; my son, Ben; my daughter, Melissa and my parents, Don and Penny Sabin — for their support for this book, and in life.

Publisher’s Acknowledgments

We’re proud of this book; please send us your comments through our online registration form located at www.dummies.com/register/.

Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following:

Acquisitions, Editorial, and Media Development

Project Editor: Christopher Morris

Acquisitions Editor: Amy Fandrei

Copy Editor: Brian Walls

Technical Editor: Andy Peatling

Editorial Manager: Kevin Kirschner

Editorial Assistant: Amanda Graham

Sr. Editorial Assistant: Cherie Case

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Composition Services

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Publishing and Editorial for Technology Dummies

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Publishing for Consumer Dummies

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Composition Services

Debbie Stailey, Director of Composition Services

Introduction

BuddyPress allows users to create their own social community on their Web site. BuddyPress entered the scene and began to gain attention in the blogging community during the summer of 2008, and brought a suite of plugins and add-ons to the very popular blogging platform, WordPress. Today, anyone can host a social community on their own Web site through the combined use of WordPress and BuddyPress. The really good news is that you can accomplish this on your own Web site for the cost of exactly nothing. BuddyPress is free, open-source software that you can download, install, and begin building your own social community on the Web today. Whoever said, “nothing in life is free” hasn’t met the folks behind the BuddyPress and WordPress software development!

Social communities on the Web are all the rave today. They started with sites like MySpace (www.myspace.com) and Facebook (www.facebook.com), where people can go to the Web site, join, and immediately start connecting with other people who share similar interests, hobbies, ideas, and talents. These communities allow you to share photos, music, videos, news, information, and even personal anecdotes about you and your life. You’re able to network with other people from around the world who share the same interests as you through searching for them, joining groups and discussion forums, and then creating friendships so that you can keep track of and stay in touch with the people you’ve met. Social communities are an event on the Internet in a room that’s never empty and in which the party never ends.

BuddyPress isn’t a stand-alone program; it requires the use of the WordPress software. This means that you have to be running WordPress on your Web site before you can add the BuddyPress component. WordPress is an insanely popular (and free) blogging platform that’s open source, easy to install, and used to power the content management of your Web site. After you install WordPress, you can add BuddyPress and start building a community. As you’ll find in the pages of this book, BuddyPress is easy to install and gets your site up and running in a very short amount of time.

Niche communities are popping up all over the Web. These communities encourage social groups that focus on specific topics, ideas, and talents to share information and enable community members to network with oneanother, regardless of geographical location. By using BuddyPress on aWordPress-powered site, the possibilities of social networking on the Internet are endless! Political groups, environmental groups, businesses large and small, knitting groups, bowling groups, sports groups . . . any special interest group of any kind can build a community space on the Web where people with the same interests can connect, discuss, and share.

BuddyPress, with WordPress, gives you several features that will make your community very attractive to visitors and members, including the following:

Extended Profiles: Members can fill in bits of information that let other members of the community get to know them better.

Avatars: Members can upload a photo of themselves to display on their profile and various areas of the community.

Friends: Members can connect by sending and accepting friendship requests and creating a list of friends within your community.

Private Messages: Members can send and receive private messages from their friends within your community.

Activity Streams: A display of all your activity within the community, such as comments, blog posts, friendships, wire posts, and group activity.

Blog Tracking: A display of blog posts that a member has made on his blog(s) within the community.

Forums: Allows community members to create and manage their own discussion forums.

Community Blogs: Using WordPress MU, users are able to create and manage their own blog within the community.

The really nice thing about the BuddyPress features is that you can use only the ones you want. You don’t have to use all the available features — you can disable the ones you don’t think you’ll need and use only the ones you want. BuddyPress is flexible enough to help you create and customize your own social community.

This book presents an in-depth look at the BuddyPress platform and integrating BuddyPress into your existing WordPress-powered Web site. I cover the basics of setting up the WordPress software on your Web site as a foundation;however, if you need more comprehensive information on how to use WordPress, you might want to pick up a copy of my other book, WordPress For Dummies.

BuddyPress For Dummies, like all For Dummies books, focuses on you, the user — in this case it focuses on how you can build a social community on your Web site using the WordPress platform. This book does not cover PHP or MySQL programming, nor will it turn you into a WordPress or BuddyPress developer (for that, you might want to pick up TheWordPress Bible by Aaron Brazell, published by Wiley). What this book will do is take you step-by-step through the process of installing, configuring, using, customizing, and maintaining a BuddyPress community on your Web site using all of the tools packaged within the BuddyPress and WordPress software.

About This Book

This book covers all the important aspects of using the BuddyPress platform to create a social community on your WordPress-powered Web site, including

Registering a domain name, obtaining Web hosting, and exploring the basic tools needed to manage the WordPress and BuddyPress software on your Web server.

Laying the foundation by installing and setting up the WordPress software on your Web server.

Installing and configuring the BuddyPress software.

Setting up BuddyPress and configuring such features as extended profiles, avatars, activity streams, blog tracking, friendships, groups, forums, and more!

Discovering profile fields and individualizing them for your Web community.

Integrating blogs by using WordPress and the blog-tracking component in BuddyPress.

Displaying community activity and searchable directories for members, blogs, and groups within your community.

Enabling and creating groups.

Finding tips and advice on running and managing a large social community on your Web site, including advice on customer service and technical support.

Finding and installing free BuddyPress themes.

Customizing BuddyPress themes by tweaking existing free themes, or creating your own custom BuddyPress theme from scratch.

Using BuddyPress widgets to add interactivity and community navigation options for your visitors.

Understanding how to use BuddyPress plugins to extend the functionality of your BuddyPress community.

Integrating popular social media memberships in your community, such as Twitter and Facebook.

Finding out how to obtain BuddyPress support and assistance through community forums, groups, and Web site resources.

Discovering real world examples of BuddyPress in action to see how BuddyPress looks and functions.

Conventions Used in This Book

Consistency is a good thing when you’re taking on the task of learning new things. Throughout this book, you can count on a consistent set of typography conventions I’ve used to help guide you through the information presented:

When I ask you to type something on your computer, you’ll see the text I want you to type printed in bold.

When I suggest a keyword or phrase that you may want to type in a search engine, the keyword or phrase is printed in italics.

Text that appears in this special font is sure to be a URL (Web address), e-mail address, filename, folder name, or snippet of code.

When I feel the need to define a word that I think you might not be familiar with, the word appears in italic text to let you know that I go on to define it next.

What You Are Not to Read

BuddyPress For Dummies is meant to assist and guide you through the mechanics of using and setting up BuddyPress and the various features of the BuddyPress platform on your Web site to build your successful social community. It isn’t meant to be read from cover to cover. Rather, the information is organized in a logical order and presented in such a way that you can jump from one section to another to enable you to take what you need, and leave the rest for your neighbor.

Although this book doesn’t contain extensive coverage of the WordPress platform, Wiley Publishing offers two books that comprehensively cover the use of WordPress. WordPress For Dummies, by (yours truly) Lisa Sabin-Wilson, focuses on the beginner-to-intermediate level WordPress user; and the WordPress Bible, by Aaron Brazell, goes in-depth on WordPress development, including plugin and theme development with the more advanced WordPress user in mind.

Visit the Table of Contents to discover the content covered in this book and flip to the pages that discuss the topic you need the most assistance with. For example, if you need the basics on setting up the WordPress foundation of your Web site, be sure to read Chapters 2 and 3, but if you already have WordPress set up on your Web server, you can skip Chapter 2.

If you need more of an introduction to the BuddyPress platform, be sure to read Chapter 1; then move on to Part II to discover the steps you take to set up the software and begin configuring the available options and features.

If you want to customize your BuddyPress-powered site with a really cool visual design and layout, then make sure you head to Part IV, “Customizing BuddyPress,” in which you discover the default BuddyPress themes and information on how to customize the themes with HTML and CSS.

In a nutshell, you’re safe to take what you need from this book and apply your new knowledge to your BuddyPress community. Then pass on your new found knowledge to your friends and wow them with your supreme geekiness!

Foolish Assumptions

I try not to make assumptions about people I’ve never met; however, for the purpose of this book, I have made a few assumptions about you:

You have access to a computer — PC or Mac, this book covers both.

Your computer has access to the Internet.

You know how to type on a keyboard.

You have a basic understanding of what blogs are and how they work.

You know what WordPress is and have some basic experience with using the platform to run and maintain a blog or Web site on the Internet.

I’ve also assumed that you have a big interest in learning how you can create and maintain a social community on your Web site using the BuddyPress platform. If I’m right on that assumption, then you are definitely in the right place!

How This Book Is Organized

BuddyPress For Dummies is organized into 6 parts that encompass 17 chapters of information you need to know in order to use the BuddyPress platform.

Part I: IntroducingBuddyPress gives you an introduction of the BuddyPress platform and the advantages you will find in using it to build a social community of users on your Web site. In this part, you discover the tools you need to run BuddyPress on your Web site, including domain registration, obtaining a Web hosting provider, and using FTP (File Transfer Protocol) to transfer the necessary software files. Additionally, this part introduces you to the basics of the WordPress MU software requirements that need to be in place before you can install the BuddyPress platform on your Web site. This part also includes a basic run through of the WordPress dashboard and options, once you have WordPress installed and running on your Web server.

Part II: Getting Up and Running withBuddyPress introduces you to the methods of installing BuddyPress on your WordPress-powered site: auto-installation with the WordPress plugin installer, or manual installation with BuddyPress by downloading the software and using FTP to upload it to your Web server. This part gives you a full understanding of the directory structure of the BuddyPress software files. In this part, you configure BuddyPress, set up the components you want to use within your social community, and set up the profile fields for your community members.

Part III: Understanding BuddyPress Features takes you through all the exciting BuddyPress features that will make your social community a smashing success with your visitors. You explore how your users will benefit from such features as community registration, extended profiles and avatars, friendships, private messages, activity streams, community blogs, searchable directories, groups, and forums.

Part IV: Customizing BuddyPress introduces you to BuddyPress themes and template tags that you can use to create a visual display that is individualized and unique to your community. Although BuddyPress comes bundled with nicely designed default themes to get you going right away, you’ll find information on basic CSS and HTML that will help you tweak an existing free BuddyPress theme that you are using, or help you create your own custom theme. This part also takes you through the differences between the BuddyPress Home theme and the BuddyPress Member theme.

Part V: Extending BuddyPress gives you the opportunity to explore how you can add different features to your BuddyPress community through third-party plugins developed by BuddyPress and WordPress community members. This part introduces you to the methods of finding, downloading, installing, and using BuddyPress plugins on your Web site. Additionally, this part also shows you how you can integrate other popular social network sites and communities (say Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube) in your own BuddyPress-powered community.

Part VI: The Part of Tens is a staple in all For Dummies books. This Part of Tens explores real world examples of BuddyPress implementations on the Web so you can see how others are using the software to run successful communities. This part also explores some popular BuddyPress plugins and themes that will help you extend your BuddyPress site and create a community that will receive rave reviews from your members!

The Appendix covers some information for the true geeks out there! BuddyPress gives you the chance to use cutting-edge versions of their software before it releases to the public. This Appendix covers where to find a program called SVN (Subversion) to update your BuddyPress version to the latest cutting-edge (Beta) version.

Icons Used in This Book

Throughout this book, you can’t miss the little icons that appear in the margins that spotlight certain points I want to emphasize. They highlight items you need to remember, warnings you need to be aware of, technical advice, and “how-tos” or tips that I think will really help you on your way. Here’s what to expect when you see these icons throughout the pages of this book.

This icon appears next to information that I think you’ll find very useful — advice and gems of information that I’ve discovered in my experiences with the BuddyPress software.

This icon looks like a little bomb for a reason! You definitely need to pay attention to these items because they contain information on things you should be doing — or not doing — when setting up and using the BuddyPress software.

This icon flags important points that I want you to remember while you set up and use your BuddyPress/WordPress-powered Web site. When I use this icon, I want you to read it two or three times and brand it into your brain forever and ever.

Let’s face it, building Web sites, blogs, and social communities is kind of a geeky adventure. I use this icon to point out some technical mumbo jumbo — the sort of technical information that geeks love — that might be helpful while you set up your social community empire.

Where to Go From Here

I think I’ve gone on enough to give you a good understanding of what this book contains — it’s time to get started! This book is a handy reference guide that contains information, tips, ideas, concepts, and tools that you need to start using BuddyPress. As I mention in the “What You Are Not to Read” section, thumb through the Index or the Table of Contents to find the sections that you feel will be most helpful to you. You can find this book’s Cheat Sheet online at www.dummies.com/cheatsheet/buddypress.

Part I

Introducing BuddyPress

In this part . . .

If you’re ready to start building your own social community on the Web, you’re in the right place! This part introduces you to the wonders of the BuddyPress platform and the WordPress blogging platform that you build your BuddyPress community on. I tell you all about social communities, why you want to include one on your Web site, how to lay the WordPress foundation required to begin the magic and give you a tour through the WordPress dashboard to make sure you can find your way around.

Chapter 1

A New Friend Named BuddyPress

In This Chapter

Building a community-driven Web site with BuddyPress

Creating communities for niche industries

Discovering the benefits of BuddyPress

Laying the WordPress foundation

Exploring the BuddyPress community

The popularity of social communities on the Web is undeniable. If you picked up this book, most likely, you’re already familiar with WordPress. WordPress has created the world’s most popular blogging platform (no kidding, the world’s!), allowing millions of users all over the globe to freely publish content on the Internet and invite others to join the discussion. BuddyPress, introduced to the WordPress community in 2008, was the next logical step, enabling bloggers to expand their Web sites to include a social community for their visitors to participate in.

This chapter explores why you want to create a social community on your Web site and the benefits of using the BuddyPress platform to accomplish that goal. Because BuddyPress integrates with the WordPress blogging platform, you also discover some of the BuddyPress features that work in tandem with WordPress MU, such as member blogs and blog tracking features.

Building a Social Community with BuddyPress

Social communities are all over the Web today. One very popular example is Facebook (http://facebook.com). Facebook launched in 2004 and today is the largest and most popular social network on the Web, with more than 250 million users (and growing). Before getting into details of building your own social community with the BuddyPress platform, have a look at a few impressive statistics about Facebook (see Figure 1-1).

More than 120 million users log in to Facebook at least once a day.

The average Facebook user has 120 friends on the site.

More than 1 billion photos are uploaded to Facebook each month.

More than 10 million videos are shared on Facebook each month.

More than 45 million active user groups exist on Facebook.

The fastest growing demographic on Facebook are those 35 years old or older.

Those are some impressive statistics, no? You might be asking why I’m sharing Facebook stats (www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics) in a book about BuddyPress. The answer is simple: They illustrate the extreme popularity of social communities and the availability of a network where people can connect, share, and interact with others via a computer connected to the Internet.

Figure 1-1: Facebook is the world’s largest and most popular social community.

BuddyPress allows you to create a very similar type of social community on your own WordPress-powered Web site and helps you take your existing Web site to the next level by allowing your visitors to become members. A BuddyPress social community gives its members a handful of core features that are easy to set up and allows them to immediately connect with other members of the community. Members can have extensive profiles that contain personal biographical information that allows other members to find out more about them. Members share with other members any information they want, from personal information and news to Web site links, photos, videos, music, and more.

Why build a social community?

In March 2009, I attended a conference in Austin, Texas, called South by Southwest Interactive where geeks from all over the world gather for one weekend to network and discover the new, exciting, and innovative Internet trends and technologies. I attend this conference annually, and there is always a buzz about the major trend for that year. The buzz phrase at South by Southwest in 2009 was, “It’s all about the conversation.” The Web has become more than just a place to obtain information today; it has become a place to share information and connect with other people through ongoing conversations through different types of social media. Social communities give people the opportunity to be the media rather than just be consumers of the media.

One nice benefit to Facebook is its size — almost everyone I know has a Facebook account and I can find them there, add them as a friend, and connect with them easily (and probably more often than I would off the computer). A negative aspect of Facebook is that all the content shared on that site is stored on that site. Therefore, for people to find the source of the information they are seeking, they end up on the Facebook Web site, rather than your site; and the point of having a Web site is to build content that people want to read and consume.

Your Web site isn’t generic, is it? Of course not! More than likely, your Web site is about something — a specific topic, product, or service. BuddyPress gives you the opportunity to open up your Web site for members to join your community and engage in discussions about topics that you’re passionate about; so passionate that you started a Web site. You aren’t the only one in the world with a passion for your particular topic — inviting others who share your passion to join your community will benefit you and your members by allowing the entire group to share advice, tips, and connections.

Types of people who build social communities

It’s been said that there’s a blog on the Internet for every possible topic that you can think of, and it’s true! There are blogs about politics, education, media, technology, beauty, Hollywood, arts and crafts, designing, health and medicine, and news, just to name several. If you can think of a topic — I bet there’s a blog about it.

These topical blogs function in the way you would suspect them to: The blog owner publishes articles and content that he or she thinks readers will find interesting; then visitors to the site are invited to participate in the discussion of the articles through blog comments.

Web site owners who want to take the interactivity on their site a few steps further can now build a social community where visitors to the Web site can create a membership and become part of the content and conversation. In addition to leaving comments on the articles, members can write their own articles, share more information, and participate in the site as a full contributor rather than just a visitor. Members can benefit from networking and connecting with other members within the community as well. Here are a few examples of the types of communities I’m talking about, all built with the BuddyPress/WordPress platform. (In Chapter 17, I give ten real-world examples of BuddyPress in action.)

Tasty Kitchen (http://thepioneerwoman.com/tasty-kitchen): An active social community of members who like to cook.

Gigaom Pro(http://pro.gigaom.com): A network of analysts providing technology-related research papers and notes.

VWTankWars (http://tdi.vw.com): By Volkswagen, a network of VW TDI drivers working to make a world record mileage score.

Businesses large and small benefit from adding a social community component to their Web sites by gaining the ability to invite their customers, or potential customers, to participate in the discussion about their business.

Political movements are ripe for social community involvement because they encourage the sharing of ideas and news, and the involvement in causes. Some would say that the success of Barack Obama’s campaign for President of the United States was aided tremendously by the very energetic and active social community of voters on the Internet. Barack Obama’s campaign Web site was a social community of voters and potential voters, whose thoughts and ideas helped to shape a good portion of Obama’s campaign. The success of that social movement on the Internet is undeniable, no matter which way your politics fall.

Other niche industries and communities can experience the same type of success when they gather people in one environment on the Internet — it’s all about listening to the conversation that develops!

Discovering the Benefits of BuddyPress

Working with the BuddyPress software since July 2008, I can attest to the rapid (and wonderful) development that takes place to improve BuddyPress. BuddyPress is constantly improving the software and introducing exciting new and useful features with each new release. If you spend time on the official BuddyPress Web site at http://buddypress.org (see Figure 1-2), you’ll find that the development of the platform is community-driven; that is, the community suggests ideas and wish lists for new features, and the developers of the BuddyPress software do their best to answer the call. Imagine a software company, say Microsoft, driving the development of its operating system in such a manner: The world would be a better place! It’s exciting to be part of a development community that is so responsive to its users.

Figure 1-2: The official BuddyPress Web site.

Aside from the exciting pace and quality of development, BuddyPress also offers the following advantages to users who wish to create a social community on their Web site:

WordPress MU: BuddyPress plugs right into the WordPress MU platform. WordPress is very easy to set up and use, even for the novice Web site developer.

Ease of use: BuddyPress is easy to install and set up; you don’t need to be a major geek or programmer to accomplish these tasks.

Flexibility: BuddyPress offers a suite of plugins for WordPress that you can choose from. You can choose to use all of them or just a few of them.

Extensibility: Using plugins and themes, you can customize BuddyPress to suit your needs.

Community: As I’ve already mentioned, the BuddyPress community is a very active adjunct to the already huge and active WordPress community. Finding assistance and camaraderie is just a mouse click away!

The following sections will quench your curiosity with more details on these features and point you to the various places in this book where you can find more detailed information.

WordPress as the foundation

You’re probably aware of how easy the WordPress blogging platform (see Figure 1-3) makes creating a blog or Web site. Millions of users blog on WordPress (http://wordpress.org), a proven success in Web publishing and content management. Using such a solid and successful platform as WordPress for the foundation of your new social community (built with BuddyPress) is a formula for success because WordPress makes managing and maintaining a Web site very easy.

Three different versions of the WordPress software currently exist, as follows:

WordPress.com: This is the hosted version.

WordPress.org: This is the single user, self-hosted version.

WordPress MU: This is the multi-user version.

Figure 1-3: The official WordPress Web site.

Currently, the only version that is compatible with BuddyPress is the WordPress MU version. WordPress.com and WordPress.org do not have the ability to host the features of BuddyPress right now, although that may certainly change in the future. When I refer to WordPress in this book, I am referring to WordPress MU, the multiple user version of the software. You will find a great deal of information about WordPress MU in Chapters 2 and 3.

The WordPress platform gives you a great foundation for your social community with the following features:

Multiple member blogs

Articles organized by topic

Content archived by month and year

Categorized link lists

Interactive comments

Privacy controls

Built-in RSS feed syndication

Easy management of media files, such as photos, video, and music

Hundreds of plugins and themes to extend your Web site

Once you have WordPress running on your site, you’re more than halfway toward building a social community. Adding the BuddyPress suite of plugins gives you the ability to extend additional features to your visitors that allow them to join your site’s community and create a full-featured member profile; create a blog on your site; and create groups, forums, photo albums, and more.

I mention in the Introduction that BuddyPress For Dummies is not a guide on using the WordPress software, but rather a book about adding the BuddyPress platform onto an existing WordPress-powered site. Although Chapters 2 and 3 of this book explore the basics of getting WordPress running on your site, this book assumes a certain level of existing familiarity with WordPress. You might also want to pick up my other book, WordPress For Dummies for more in-depth information on running WordPress on your Web site.