April 6, 2010 
TwitConnect plugin has been around for a year or so but it was recently updated to be compatible with BuddyPress. This plugin was written by Shannon Whitley and utilizes oAuth to authenticate users on your site with Twitter. Adding this plugin is a great way to get more people commenting on your WordPress blog and interacting with your BuddyPress site members. This plugin caters to the average impatient micro-blogger who doesn’t want to be inconvenienced with signing up for any more accounts. This type of user is happy to use Twitter for everything, including posting tweets to friends in neighboring cubicles. ;) Using this plugin will assist you in acquiring new members by making your site instantly more accessible to people through Twitter, even if they just want to pop in and leave a few comments on the blog. Showing a user’s Twitter avatar is preferable to him posting as a guest with the default avatar. Depending on the targeted demographic of your user base, installing this plugin may offer a great number of benefits to you.
TwitConnect Options and Features
All of these options are available under Settings >> TwitConnect once the plugin is installed:
- Hosted or self-hosted oAuth option
- Show or hide button on the comment page
- Commenting with Twitter avatars
- Avatars hosted with TwitConnect Image Service or Self-hosted
- “Tweet this comment” option
- Customize comment page text, login text, and button positioning
- Option to point author link to Twitter profile
- Customize redirection after login
The only drawback is that even though users who connect through Twitter are added to the member directory, they cannot have profiles unless they register the normal way through BuddyPress. They can, however, post updates to the activity stream. I would like to see the option for posting on the site to be restricted or unrestricted, because chances are that site owners will have different preferences concerning what a user can do when logging in via a third party. Not being able to post might cause users to want to register once they’ve had a chance to get involved with your site’s content. Considering that it is just now compatible with BuddyPress, I’m sure the plugin will evolve with more users helping to add new features to the code for their own requirements. Check it out and get in touch with Shannon Whitley if you have any questions or would like make any suggestions.
Sarah Gooding on Google+
Hi,
I am looking for a way to integrate my website sign in with the buddypress module I use (as the social network attached to my site). My site is developed using php and Mysql (using adobe products). I have a sign in only allowed part and I would like to have the credentials recognized by the buddypress module.
Please anybody let me know if it is possible (I am sure it is :-))and how.
Thanks,
Carly
Carly,
BuddyPress requires WordPress so you’ll have to get your site hooked up with that first: http://wordpress.org Let me know if you have any questions. You can also reach us on Twitter: @wpmuorg
HI Sarah,
Thank you for your quick answer.
Yes, I have installed everything, WP and BP, and these applications are working fine for me.
My goal is to add a social network module to my web site.
I did a long search and I tried different social network free softwares: Elgg, NetworX, Dophin but none was as friendly and as reliable as BuddyPress. Maybe I am looking in a wrong direction – any help is very much appreciated!
However if I am to use BuddyPress I need to be able to allow users to log in just ONE time to see the content (the restricted parts) of my site and to access the social network part of the site.
Basically I need to hack the login page of the buddypress – to either make it THE login page of the whole site and after login to redirect the users to where I want, or to be able to automaticaly read the credentials that the user entered in MY login page when they try to access the social network module.
Any help whatsoever is very very much appreciated.
BTW, yours is a great site – I already tried several hints for BuddyPress hacking!
Thanks,
Carly