[@nukeban Participant 5 years ago]

Thanks for your input Cool Hunt. Can you direct me to any BuddyBoss or BuddyPress site which I could join as a user? Is there perhaps a directory of such sites somewhere?

[@nukeban Participant 5 years ago]

Here’s 2 cents of input from a new comer…

It’s great that BuddyPress is free, that’s certainly an important part of the market to serve, and I applaud members for doing so. Truly.

However, there’s a downside to free too, nobody is obligated to the user, as is the case with paid software. So for example, if I were to succeed in my goals I’d have a social site full of serious professional people, who aren’t going to be easy for me to attract as they are already quite busy. I can’t afford to invest tons of time in winning them over, and then have some software let me down.

So I’m looking for some situation such as I have with a WordPress.com paid account, where if something technical goes wrong they jump on it immediately and fix it, and I can stay focused on content, marketing, networking etc. The WordPress support team says they would help me with BuddyPress if they could, but it’s not their software so there’s only so much help I can expect, which seems entirely reasonable to me.

I could come here for assistance, but I would have paid the BuddyPress team nothing, so it wouldn’t be reasonable for me to expect help unless somebody just happens to feel like it on that particular day.

So as seen from here, BuddyBoss is not really competing with BuddyPress, but providing a different kind of service, a commercial service. The downside with BuddyBoss, best I can tell, is that BuddyBoss isn’t really up and running yet. You know, they’ve been unable to point me to a single one of their client’s sites, a limitation they explained to me quite promptly and politely.

WordPress.com has a theme which offers some level of social site features, but so far I’ve been unable to make any sense of it. If it’s confusing to me, it will likely also be to any new users I am able to attract.

So my first impression is that BuddyPress appears to be interesting hobby software generously provided for free, but if I want a more serious setup I’ll have to start looking beyond the WordPress environment.

[@nukeban Participant 5 years ago]

I’m totally new to the BuddyPress universe. So far I’ve been unable to find any site which uses either BuddyPress or BuddyBoss. I’m sure they exist, just can’t find them. Posted that question on this forum, no reply yet. Emailed BuddyBoss, and they politely informed me they have no way of connecting me with any of their client sites so that I can try their system.
Gotta say, so far my first impression is that none of this is ready for prime time.

FYI, while I’m ignorant of all things BuddyPress, I have been working online since 1995 and have coded my own blog and forum software from scratch.

Anyway, I’m hoping to be able to join anybody’s BuddySomething site so I can experience this software as a user. Activism sites would be ideal, but any site will do. Thanks for any advice.