WordPress Publisher Blog

Thanks Cátia Kitahara for lettings us know about a new BuddyPress site which is being used to enable and foster debate about various aspects of today’s digital life in Brazil. Built by the Brazilian Culture Ministry, the beta site is now live at culturadigital.br:

The site describes itself as “an open public space destined to democratically create and build a public policy of digital culture, integrating citizens, government institutions, state companies, civil society and the market.” Making use of all the “Facebook-in-a-box” features of BuddyPress, this site is off to a great start and could be a model for other organizations and companies looking to build this kind of community engagement and interaction.

[Visit culturadigital.br ]

Tasty Kitchen, a site by The Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond, has launched a community site on the BuddyPress platform:

Built by the team at Voce Communication, Nick Gernert in a blog post today describes BuddyPress this way:

Not to over-simplify things, but think “Facebook in a Box.”
Groups, Wire posts (think Facebook Wall), activity streams, friend lists and forums are all a part of the platform. These all build from the user system native to WordPress and simply add functions to allow users to interact with each other. Use as many or as few of the capabilities as you like.

The site also integrates with the Windows Live, allowing Live users to authenticate instantly — something I believe is a first for a non-Microsoft site.

[ Visit Tasty Kitchen ]

Recently GigaOM – a network of sites focused on technology news, analysis and opinions – launched a new premier research membership site powered by BuddyPress running on WordPress MU.

This new site, called GigaOM Pro, was created “to address the gap that exists in real-time expert industry analysis on emerging technology markets.”:

The site was built by Mark Jaquith, who has written up a few thoughts and tech details on this very exciting project.

[ Visit GigaOM Pro ]

Michael Ashby of Coherent Methods LLC, published a very thoughtful post about his experience so far working with WordPress and BuddyPress:

I switched from MoveableType to WordPress back in September of last year and it’s been one of the best decisions that I’ve made regarding this blog. WordPress is just so much easier and, dare I say, FUN to use. There’s a richer developer community, more templates and generally more help out there than there is for MT. But my joy with working with WP over MT is more than just skin deep.

Michael goes on to talk about the Six Apart Motion component that works with MovableType:

When I first watched the video for Motion, I kept going “Huh? How am I supposed to use this?” If you take a look at the Motion Demo, you’ll see what I mean … After looking at the demo, the only feeling I’m left with is “Why?” Why would someone want this on their site?

In comparison, the BuddyPress platform sparks this reaction:

Then you take a look at the BuddyPress Demo and there’s a remarkable difference. It’s clearly designed to mirror the FaceBook style of community, but it’s cleaner and clearer as to what you can do and how everything works. In fact, I think it’s fair to say that it’s a better design that FaceBook! I’m currently developing a new community web site and I actually had to stop and think about BuddyPress for quite some time. So at the end of the demo, I’m left thinking “How would I use this?” Not, “Why would I use this?”

Looking forward to seeing what Michael and his team put together with WordPress and BuddyPress.

[ visit mashby.com ]

Flokka.com a new social blogging network for business women has selected WordPress MU and BuddyPress as its platform of choice.

Flokka represents one of the first sites to use the new BuddyPress social networking platform which is due for an official launch at the end of the year.

[ Visit Flokka.com ]