Topranked Wellness Sites

It is already that time of the year – time to review  events of the past 12 months . Everyone has  already been blogging about the impact of social media and web 2.0 and especially that of the latest collaborative developments around the Open Social ID and the release of widgets like the beta version of Google Friend Connect. The first allow users to use the same ID as they surf the web from one platform to another. The second allow users to carry their identity as well as their friends across networks.

The third and equally important development of this year in my view is the release of more and more Social Media Blogging applications which allow everyday bloggers to rendezvous with the democratic or mass era of social media.

Much has been written over the first two in recent months and weeks. My focus here will hence be restricted to the latter phenomena and especially the 15th December 2008 release of the BuddyPress WordPress Social Network Blogging application.

What is BuddyPress?

If you thought about it as a kind of publishing tool for buddies to share  discussions about things of common interest amongst themselves, you may not be totally off target, because the aim of Andy Peatling and his buddies was just that – to put the power of user generated social media within the reach of literally anybody, no matter the level of their knowledge about the internet or of IT.

What I like about it is above all – its simplicity. If you can read and write – you can create your social network in a flash – Why? Because it is coded in a “what you see is what you get” format. For those of you who do not yet have a BuddyPress account – go here and try it out here – its  free.

BuddyPress succeeded in achieving this goal by building on the already popular and stable WordPress Multi-User platform and compliment it with:

(a) A core plug-in required by all other plug-ins which contains the shared functions and performs the basic modifications to the WordPress MU interface;

(b) A series of distinctive components which handles functionalities for a specific purpose like setting profiles, messaging, friends network,, groups, wire, multiple Blogs and discussion forums; and last but not the least

(c) Two default themes.

The excitement about  BuddyPress and other similar social media enabled Blogging applications lies in the fact Blogs are generally easier to set-up, rank faster in search engines and now with the BuddyPress solution allows you to have the best of both worlds by transforming your Blog into an interactive social network engaging friends, customers and associates around topics of common interest.

The extend to which this tool can become your next best weapon of mass persuasion or weapon of social communication depends entirely on your own or your graphic designers imagination and creativity as demonstrated by the  popular Flokka Women’s Blog Forum accomplished by Robert Popovic or the spanish language experimento-en-espanol realized by Alvaro Illanes.

My humble advice for any business owner and wellness sector business in particular is to embrace applications like BuddyPress as the easiest and most effective way to establish, maintain interactive relations of confidence with business friends, associates and customers.

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