The document outlines the process of creating an online social network for a client using WordPress and BuddyPress. It describes how the existing WordPress site lacked user engagement. The goals of the new project were to reflect the physical space online, increase collaboration and commenting. BuddyPress was chosen as the social networking plugin to add these features. The process involved initial meetings, proposals, selecting plugins, prototyping, project management, testing and resolving issues. The end result was a new social network built on an open source platform to increase user interaction for the client.

1. CREATING AN ONLINE SOCIAL NETWORK USING WORDPRESS & BUDDYPRESS Bronson Quick sennza | (07) 3040-1545 | bronson@sennza.com.au | http://www.sennza.com.au/ | Twitter: @sennza

3. Goals

4. Why BuddyPress?

5. Initial scope meeting

6. Proposal and considerations

7. Plugins

8. Prototyping

9. Project Management

10. Version Control

11. Testing

12. Problems 2 of 17 sennza | (07) 3040-1545 | bronson@sennza.com.au | http://www.sennza.com.au/ | Twitter: @sennza

14. Modifications and design updates by Brett Sirianni (Digital Design Coordinator)

15. Doesn’t have to comply with CUE standards as it’s a .org.au

16. Limited user engagement and interactionThe site didn’t reflect what happens inside the space! sennza | (07) 3040-1545 | bronson@sennza.com.au | http://www.sennza.com.au/ | Twitter: @sennza 3 of 17

17. OUR PROCESS Let’s have a look at how we achieved this! sennza | (07) 3040-1545 | bronson@sennza.com.au | http://www.sennza.com.au/ | Twitter: @sennza 4 of 17

19. Increase commenting

20. Encourage collaboration

21. Create long time learning

22. Digital footprint for Queensland

23. Embrace and contribute back to open source software

24. Work with the Queensland Government to implement a social network!What an exciting and challenging project! sennza | (07) 3040-1545 | bronson@sennza.com.au | http://www.sennza.com.au/ | Twitter: @sennza 5 of 17

25. WHY BUDDYPRESS? BuddyPress: “Social networking in a box” sennza | (07) 3040-1545 | bronson@sennza.com.au | http://www.sennza.com.au/ | Twitter: @sennza 6 of 17

27. Privacy

28. Reach

29. Moderation

30. Open source contributionLet’s flesh that out a bit more! sennza | (07) 3040-1545 | bronson@sennza.com.au | http://www.sennza.com.au/ | Twitter: @sennza 7 of 17

32. Wireframes

33. Server requirements

34. Plugins

35. Plugin extensibility, security & performance

36. Testing – UAT & Unit testing

37. Moderation

38. Privacy

39. Open source community impact

40. Queensland Digital Footprint...18 pages, 72 hours and 9 coffees later! sennza | (07) 3040-1545 | bronson@sennza.com.au | http://www.sennza.com.au/ | Twitter: @sennza 8 of 17

42. BuddyPress Like

43. BuddyPress Mobile

44. BuddyPress Tweet Button

45. Sidebar Login

46. BC oAuth

47. BP Xtra Signup

48. BuddyPress Live Notification

49. BuddyPress Moderation

50. BuddyPress reCAPTCHA

51. Featured Member Widget

52. Welcome Pack

53. W3 Total Cache

54. Plus one more....No plugin is created equally!  sennza | (07) 3040-1545 | bronson@sennza.com.au | http://www.sennza.com.au/ | Twitter: @sennza 9 of 17

56. Embed a video from popular sites such as YouTube and Vimeo by copying the link

57. Embed a link to any site - the site title and description will automatically be pulled in

58. Embedding a link also allows you to choose a thumbnail image from a list of images on the site's homepage

59. Works perfectly with any theme based on the BuddyPress Default theme

60. To be developed externally

61. To be fully open source for EVERYONE to use! http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/buddypress-activity-plus/Bet you haven’t seen that happen in the Government before! sennza | (07) 3040-1545 | bronson@sennza.com.au | http://www.sennza.com.au/ | Twitter: @sennza 10 of 17

63. What’s the server load like?

64. What WordPress version are they currently running?

65. Does the theme work on the latest version of WordPress?

66. Can I develop and child theme on it?OMG what have I got us into?!?!  sennza | (07) 3040-1545 | bronson@sennza.com.au | http://www.sennza.com.au/ | Twitter: @sennza 11 of 17

67. PROJECT MANAGEMENT Basecamp for the win! sennza | (07) 3040-1545 | bronson@sennza.com.au | http://www.sennza.com.au/ | Twitter: @sennza 12 of 17

68. VERSION CONTROL This went from hard to easy with 1 developer! sennza | (07) 3040-1545 | bronson@sennza.com.au | http://www.sennza.com.au/ | Twitter: @sennza 13 of 17

70. Round 1 of bug squashing!

71. Internal testing

72. Round 2 of bug squashing!

73. Internal testing

74. Round 3 of bug squashing!

75. Soft launch – “beta”Oh noes! I can have server problems  sennza | (07) 3040-1545 | bronson@sennza.com.au | http://www.sennza.com.au/ | Twitter: @sennza 14 of 17

77. No phpmyadmin access!

78. Didn’t get activate caching on their fast enough 

79. Object Caching 4903/5054 objects using disk

80. I was wearing a pink sombrero a.k.a cowboy coding http://www.bnj.com/cowboy-coding-pink-sombrero/We have a dedicated staging site being provisioned! sennza | (07) 3040-1545 | bronson@sennza.com.au | http://www.sennza.com.au/ | Twitter: @sennza 15 of 17

82. Held at Bond Uni

83. 2 content streams – High Tech and Low Tech

84. Morning Tea and Lunch on both days!

85. A funky lanyard for the event so you cherish your wonderful memories of the weekend!

86. A chance to network with hundreds of Australian WordPress users, designers and developers…and even some attendees from overseas!

87. Normally $75 but for BWD it’s $60! - bit.ly/wpbwd Code: BWD2 days worth of training for $60? Hook me up! sennza | (07) 3040-1545 | bronson@sennza.com.au | http://www.sennza.com.au/ | Twitter: @sennza 16 of 17

89. Brett Sirianni – Digital Design Coordinator

90. The Edge Team for UAT testing!

91. Andy Peatling (@apeatling)

92. Paul Gibbs (@pgibbs)

93. Boone B Gorges (@boonebgorges)

94. All the people on BuddyPress.org & the WordPress community!And thanks to you for your time! sennza | (07) 3040-1545 | bronson@sennza.com.au | http://www.sennza.com.au/ | Twitter: @sennza 17 of 17