June 29, 2010 An exciting new BuddyPress plugin by Rich Fuller has arrived on the scene that enables users to add hashtags to their activities. BuddyPress Activity Stream Hashtags converts #hashtags references to a link that leads to the activity search page. This provides a whole new level of context to BuddyPress activity stream updates.
Why would you want to create a microblogging site based on BuddyPress when we have Twitter?
Hosting your own microblogging platform means that you control and manage all of your data. The idea is that people can subscribe directly to your activity stream updates, without having to join a new network, create a new profile, and pass all their data through a proprietary micro-blogging platform such as Twitter. In BuddyPress a user can subscribe directly to your feed, ie: http://yourdomain.com/admin/activity/feed or the feeds of any of your users.
Jeff Sayre wrote an article called A Flock of Twitters: Decentralized Semantic Microblogging that I highly recommend for an in-depth look at the reasons for establishing an open source microblogging ecosystem.
Here are the steps to take to set up a similar environment, using BuddyPress and WordPress 3.0:
1. Install BuddyPress and disable all of the extra components that you won’t need: ie. Forums, Groups, etc.
Go to Dashboard >> BuddyPress >> Component Setup and disable any component you wish to exclude. (Recommended to exclude: Forums, Friends, and Groups)
2. Change your General >> Reading settings to show Activity on the front page.
If you get a 404 on the homepage after completing this step, there’s a patch to fix this, if you’re not using the most recent version of BuddyPress.
3. Add the BuddyPress Followers Plugin.
This will replace the Friends functionality with Followers instead. The basic difference with followers is that the connection does not need to be accepted by the person being followed, which is more like the way that Twitter functions.
4. Add the BuddyPress Activity Stream Hashtags plugin.
Now you’re all set and ready to start customizing your theme to make posting updates more prominent and add buttons to make it easy for users to subscribe to each other’s feeds if they want to, without having to log into your site.
Even if you’re not interested in building a Twitter clone, this tutorial will help you to create an activities-centered BuddyPress site that is less focused on friends and groups. Perhaps you’re not interested in providing a massive service. Setting up a microblogging environment only for yourself isn’t a bad idea either. You’ll bypass the cattle herd of proprietary platforms and have complete control of your own data.
Sarah Gooding on Google+
i also recommend trying the activity stream ajax notification
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/buddypress-activity-stream-ajax-notifier/
this will check for a new activity stream item every few minutes and display a simple message.
Tried this but using the 2010 theme w/BuddyPress it can’t find the homepage. thoughts?
@Scot Yes! There’s a patch to fix this: http://wpmu.org/daily-tip-how-to-get-buddypress-activity-to-show-on-the-homepage/ But I think it may be corrected already if you upgrade to the latest version of BP: http://buddypress.org/2010/06/buddypress-1-2-5/
I just installed BP 1.2.5 so I’ll try the fix.
Yeah, it’s already in 1.2.5 but it’s not working for me.
Works with the BP Default theme so it must be a theme issue.
When I first read the post, I thought someone had created a theme that mimicked Twitter (which is on my to-do list!).
@r-a-y That would be really cool! I’ve seen a lot of WordPress twitter themes out there, some better than others, but none that incorporate BuddyPress. I think it would be a big hit!
Yes! This is what I want to do with my sites! Unfortunately I can’t upgrade at the moment. Great blog post!
@derek – this plugin will work with wp2.9.2 and bp1.2.4 as well.
…and ditto on the twitter-like theme, just something basic and easy to understand would be awesome.
Very nice tutorial! What about restricting posts to 140 characters the way Twitter does, any solutions?
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Question. Twitter limits the number of characters in a “post” does buddypress have the same functionality, or do you know of a plugin that adds this – in particular not necessarily to 140 chars, but a “settable” number? I have searched for this in WP plugins but cannot find one.
Thanks!
Thanks Sarah for the blog post. I’ve created one – http://mychatbox.me
And their is a character limit (200 chars) on status updates and replies
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Interesting stuff.. Would like to see more of this.. Awesome blog btw! Subscribed
Thanks Sarah for the wonderful post.I am one of the developer for http://dipqa.com.Had implemented hash tags though its a little different
thanks
John