Activity breeds activity
July 8, 2010 in Community
Over the past few weeks we’ve released 3 bug fix versions of BuddyPress; more than we’ve released for the entire beginning of the year. What I noticed is that when development was slow, so were our support forums and so was the general buzz about the project. Since we’ve started patching bugs and cranking out bug fix releases again, things are picking back up which totally rocks.
I think this is a great example of how activity breeds activity, and it reminded me that social networks and niche communities are as susceptible to becoming stagnant as normal WordPress blogs can be. Most of us have probably had a great idea for a website, spent the $10 on the domain name, installed WordPress, made a fancy theme, posted 3 updates and then for whatever reason, just lost interest in it.
The same thing is totally possible with your social network, and when development slowed down here on the BuddyPress project in the past few months, the community felt that impact and over time there was some concern about what the future of BuddyPress was going to be.
Let me tell you that “the state of the word is strong.” – MM
We’ve recently added some really fancy functionality to BuddyPress.org that integrates any plugin in the WordPress repository that is tagged ‘buddypress’ and gives it a public discussion group. It passes over a plugins’ information like ratings and statistics, gives it its own dedicated support forum where you can assign administrators and moderators, and comes with a built in donate link so people can drop a few bucks in your pocket to show their appreciation. If you’re a plugin author, be sure to check it out!
In the coming months we have a lot of exciting things planned that will revitalize the BuddyPress.org website and help solidify BuddyPress as the ultimate social networking solution for your WordPress powered site. We’re looking at adding more core contributors, more forum moderators, redesigning the site with a completely custom template, improving the codex, and diving head first into some new features for 1.3.
For everyone that was worried about BuddyPress, you can breathe a sigh of relief. For everyone else, thanks for hanging out and staying interested while things were slow. We’re full steam ahead and you can count on seeing much more activity in our community in the coming weeks!
r-a-y said on July 8, 2010
I only have one line to respond to this:
“Community breeds community”
Atomboy said on July 8, 2010
Yahoo!
I mean, Google!
No, sorry, I mean Hooray!
Brilliant, thank you for all the hard work and keeping us posted. Good news about the plugin groups and forums. There are a number which are very useful which seem to have stalled a bit, so let’s hope this will kick-start them again.
Thank you.
Paul Gibbs said on July 8, 2010
Good post
Bowe said on July 8, 2010
Good stuff JJJ.. thanks for the update
Boone Gorges said on July 8, 2010
Cha ching!
teketen said on July 8, 2010
Aupa zuek!
Ekine said on July 8, 2010
Yep, now since the soccer world cup is almost finished the world can go back to work. ^^
Nahum said on July 8, 2010
sigh……( of relief !) good news. Just when I was starting to let all the recent negativity get to me. would be good to see the ninjas submit more posts as well.
paulhastings0 said on July 8, 2010
Viva la BP!
techguy said on July 8, 2010
Forza BuddyPress! I submitted 2 proposals to present on BuddyPress at 2 different WordCamps. Hopefully I’m accepted.
Rado said on July 8, 2010
What will be the new features that you plan to add to BuddyPress??? Thanks!
David Bisset said on July 8, 2010
Excellant post John. Makes me want to get off my butt and code. Or is that get ON my butt?
Mike Pratt said on July 8, 2010
Hear, Hear John
Joss said on July 9, 2010
Awesome
Ronia said on July 10, 2010
Don’t kill me for asking this, any ETA for BP 1.3?
Since the BP_Avatar-not-showing-WP_Blogs-Outofthebox problem is still persisting it may be worth the wait for another one or two weeks.
The above_problem_solved and outofthebox privacy controls can indeed make BP immediately the ultimate SNW. Added beauty (or ?utility) would be if our members can add Social Apps or Gadgets, a feature lacking in most social scripts in an easy way.
Cheers Team BP!
Muzza said on July 10, 2010
Love to see more activity on the blog
Paul Gibbs said on July 10, 2010
No eta yet
John James Jacoby said on July 10, 2010
There will be a 1.2.6 which is hopefully the last bugfix release in the 1.2 branch. 1.3 will follow a few months after, by the end of the year for sure.
abcde666 said on July 13, 2010
welcome to the club of talented coders:
http://buddypress.org/community/groups/requests-feedback/forum/topic/what-to-help-accelerate-the-release-of-buddypress-1-3/
Stephane said on July 15, 2010
Awesome!
Can you share the code for doing this: “gives it a public discussion group. It passes over a plugins’ information like ratings and statistics, gives it its own dedicated support forum where you can assign administrators and moderators, and comes with a built in donate link so people can drop a few bucks in your pocket to show their appreciation.” ?
stwc said on July 20, 2010
“For everyone that was worried about BuddyPress, you can breathe a sigh of relief.”
For my part, I lost faith in BP a few months back, based on the problems I perceived with usability of the new (at that time) design of this very site (though in principle eating your own dogfood is wise, of course), and halted development on a couple of sites I was working on using Buddypress. I’m going to continue holding off to see what happens and I’m not ready to heave that sigh of relief quite yet, but I’ll continue to come back once in a while to see what’s up.
Like I did back then, I still think BP’s got massive potential, and I did my best when I was engaged to put time in helping BP get better. I’d love to get involved again, if I had renewed confidence in the way things were going in terms of user experience and UI. We’ll see, I guess.
Jaysonlinereviews said on July 24, 2010
Activity does breed activity that what Twitter is for. I dont understand people starting blogs and then losing interest what a waste if you ask me… Blogging especially to make money should be consistent to see the results in the serps. By the way I love Buddypress keep up the good work!
Amberen said on September 22, 2010
The above_problem_solved and outofthebox privacy controls can indeed make BP immediately the ultimate SNW. Added beauty (or ?utility) would be if our members can add Social Apps or Gadgets, a feature lacking in most social scripts in an easy way.