BuddyPress.org

I do not need any type of blogging software (beyond basic group functionality). I am only interested in the social networking aspects that buddypress brings to the table. Am I crazy to try to build a site on this foundation where I anticipate high levels of users?

And, attached to the above, what is the difference between buddypress and buddypress MU?

Hello,

This is an amazing feature, but unfortunately I’m a bit slow and stupid (I’m afraid i’m one of those annoying ‘newbies’ with dumb questions), and I can’t work out how to get all this aligned:

http://www.fennelandfern.co.uk/members/admin/profile/

At the moment, the sidebar is at the bottom. I’ve tried ‘replicating my theme’s html code in the buddypress template’, but to no avail. Would be so grateful for any help, preferably explained slowly and for stupid people!

I am one of three finalists in a Papa John’s “Create your own Specialty Pizza” contest, and to the point where I have to develop and execute a marketing strategy – nationwide – to sell as many of my pizzas (The Big Bonanza) in August as possible, beating the other two finalists.

Papa John’s (PJ) is making and offering all three on their menu August 2-29, and while I have what I think is a strong approach for such a quick turnaround promo period, I do not have much experience with website management software. I happen to be a marketer, which is what drew me to the competition, but we’re basically asked to do this with $1,000 that they’re giving us (I have to pay taxes on it, so I’m already down to $700) and I am hoping to get smart professionals on my side who what to help for the social media experience of this experiment. I think if I set if up right, the results of this will provide marketers with a great snapshot of what works/didn’t work in turning social media “fans” into paying customers. I’m at no shortage for ideas on what to do once the site is up (celebrity endorsements, mock beer/wine pairings with my pizza, challenges for free PJ gift cards, etc), but REALLY NEED YOU HELP ON THE TECHNICAL SIDE OF DEVELOPING MY SITE AND ONLINE TOOLS. That said, here is my approach and my questions for you, my brilliant sounding board:

Plan: Find a web development tool (free or nearly free) that will allow me to create and customize a social website that a dummy (me) can manage. On this site, I’d like for visitors to be able to upload their own videos of them eating my pizza, talking about it, etc, comment on posts, vote for fave videos, and forward posts to their friends via email, FB or Twitter. I’d also like the site to prompt people to sign up for email alerts throughout the contest and link to PJ’s online locator of PJ stores and online ordering system. Secondly, I’d like to set up a texting option for people to text “pizza” to 12345 for periodic updates throughout the contest.

Questions:

1) Will Buddypress work for me in delivering what I want to do, how I want to customize it, and be easy for me to use? (To qualify: I am familiar with wordpress as I use it for my company’s blog).

2) Will buddypress give me a way to manage the email addresses I’m hoping to collect? Will they let me do this through my thebigbonanza@gmail.com account that I’m currently promoting in local press?

3) With the whole texting campaign- where do I go/how do i get a 5-6 digit # to promote as the # to send their text to? Will i get a database of these peoples’ #s to send out in mass when I send out my updates? Does anyone know how i can do this on the cheap?

4) Who wants to help? I am in it to win it with this contest, and because my company is supporting me, I am approaching this as an experiment that I’d like to turn into a case study once I win (fingers crossed). I am adding a “Partners” page to my website to recognize those people and companies whose expertise contributed to my win, and whose skills I plan on promoting nationwide with the buzz of my win and methods used. Papa John’s is doing an outstanding job promoting this contest in mainstream and social media, and coupling the results of their contest with the tools I used to win will hopefully help marketers better understand what elements work/don’t when it comes to transitioning online ‘fans’ into customers. Again – whose in? I can’t pay for services, but WILL send you some pizzas once I win!

Sincerely, THANK YOU to anyone who read all of this and replies with insight and recommendations. I am very grateful.

Best Regards,
Blair Dial
thebigbonanza@gmail.com

Can we change whats in the main section of the screen? Currently it displays blog posts for my users. I would prefer it show a more FB like look, and display activities, such as status updates, photo posts, etc?

Also, can it be set to display only the activity of people in your friend list, and not the activities of everyone on the whole site?

I’ve been working with the latest BP builds of the 1.2.5 branch over the past several days. I noticed a new issue with the just-released BP 1.2.5 tagged version that I had not seen with the previous 8 or 9 branch versions that I’ve tested. After deactivating all BP-dependent plugins and then BP itself, downloading and manually installing BuddyPress 1.2.5, I went to activate BP. It activated but did not show up in the “Currently Active Site Wide Plugins” listing. I thought that was odd.

So, I deactivated and tried again. Same issue. I deactivated again, this time clicking the “Activate BuddyPress Site Wide” link which worked as expected. The issue is that BuddyPress is tagged to auto activate site wide–as should all 3rd-party BP plugins. This is accomplished by means of a simple tag in the header of bp-loader.php file. Look for the “Site Wide Only: true” tag.

When I activated my BP-dependent plugins, they all activated site wide without issue, appearing in the “Currently Active Site Wide Plugins” listing. But, the only way to get BP to appear in that listing is to manually click the “Activate BuddyPress Site Wide” link — which should not be necessary. Just for kicks, I’ve tried several combinations of edits to the header tag in bp-loader.php, including deleting the “Site Wide Only: true” tag and leaving the “Network: true” tag and visa versa. Both these tags should be there, but I wanted to see what would happen. Results: no change in behavior.

This is happening on my WP 2.9.2 dev site as well as WP 3.0.

So, the questions are:

1. Do others see this behavior? If so, what version of WP are you running?
2. What is causing this issue?

Please report any site wide activation issues.

I just wanted to let everyone know that http://www.TheChemBook.com was shown during a poster session at the HP conference this morning. It surprised my friend who was attending the conference. He sent the text message a little while ago. According to him, hundreds of chemistry teachers and department chairs (from around the world) saw the site and asked numerous questions. Many wanted to know the backend: WordPress, BuddyPress, and MediaWiki. He tried his best to answer questions – but again – he was caught off-guard. At least BP received a little attention today – from the school teachers

I am grateful to the devs of BP – the site in its current improved state wouldn’t have been possible without everyone’s endless help here. Again – thank you.