BuddyPress 1.0, an open source expansion to the popular WordPress MU, multi-user blogging platform, launched yesterday after over a year of development.

Homepage Impressions

The first thing that struck me about BuddyPress was it’s great-looking default theme. It’s very clean and modern without being too plain, quite unlike the default WordPress theme.

The default homepage displays a welcome message followed by a list of site-wide activity. The site-wide activity list is similar to how the Facebook homepage shows a list of your friends’ recent updates, only it shows updates for every registered user. This is great for small sites, but larger sites will have to edit this or else there will just be way too much information to be useful.

Also on the homepage is  a list of members, groups, and users currently online. Buttons on the members and groups list allow you to list those newest, recently active, or popular, and the change happens Ajaxically (is that a word?) so you don’t have to reload the page.

Other Sections of BuddyPress

The default BuddyPress install also offers a standard blog section for the site owner/operator to run. This appears to function just like what your used to with WordPress.

The members section allows you to view the member list, browse for members alphabetically, search for members, and view featured members in a little featured members sidebar box. Clicking on a member takes you to that member’s profile with links to his or her own blog, activity list, wire (which appears to be a mini-blog), friends, and groups.

Like the members section, the groups section allows you to view a list of groups, browse groups alphabetically, search groups, and view featured groups. Clicking on a group link takes you to that group’s homepage, which has the same basic layout as the members’ pages, with home, forum, wire, and members sections. If you’re used to group walls on Facebook, the group wire in BuddyPress is basically the same thing. One thing I noticed about the group forums is that they don’t really look like forums. Now that could be a good or bad thing depending on your personal preference, but forums have become so widely used and improved over the years that when you wind up in a forum, in most cases, you know you’re in a forum instantly. When something’s so refined as forums, the BuddyPress forum just confused me at first…I thought, “did I click the right button?” It took me a breif second to realize I was in the right place, and from a usability standpoint, that’s not good. That said, I haven’t tried the platform out yet, so who knows, maybe it’ll turn out to be ok.

Finally, there’s a blogs section which, unlike the blog section (no “s”), this section displays a familiar list of users’ blogs. You can browse blogs alphabetically, search for blogs, or view the featured blogs. The layout is identical to the members and groups sections.

All in all, it looks like a pretty solid starting point if you’re looking to add a little social aspect to your site. If it ends up doing half as well as WordPress has done, I think they’ve got a winner on their hands.

Check out the BuddyPress Demo for more [BuddyPress].

Weblog Tools Collection has an interesting audio interview with Mark E. of Maximum Security about his newly released Maximum Security WordPress plugin. Apparently, Mark is a 15-year veteran of the computer security business, and he seems to know his stuff. His new plugin looks to be a pretty comprehensive and easy-to-use security suite for WordPress. And of course, the price is right – free!

Some of the more impressive features of Maximum Security:

1. Email notification as soon as new WP version is released
2. Runs an automated security scan for common security issues
3. Auto plugin and theme scanner
4. Firewall and intrusion prevention system
5. Block site crawlers and site scraping bots.
6. Includes a comprehensive logging interface so you can review suspicious activity

The plugin is in Beta right now and you have to register for Maximum Security’s email list to get it. Check it out here.

You can check out the original interview at Weblog Tools Collection.