I was very buzzed for a good day of networking and insightful talks. Despite the very long queue to gain entry and the absence of free tea or coffee (Rather shocking, considering the price tag for this event), I was determined to have a good time. The list of Panelists included Kelvin Jonck of Cell C, Bellinda Carreira of Standard Bank and Patrick Kayton of Cognician. Their talks ranged from Social Media Monitoring and Strategy, Big business’ approach to Social Media and Social Media start-ups respectively.

The conference led to many insights into Social Media and how social media is being practiced in South Africa. I’ve already recapped some of the most profound lessons in our Social Media Strategy (Part 5) blog post, and for insight provided by others I suggest these blogs written by Anthony Coe and Darren Gilbert.

Social Media VS Traditional Media

One  of the most interesting insights gained at SMWF was that in the South African context, social media on it’s own is not enough, and it has to seamlessly integrate with what companies are already doing in other media. As Kemi Benjamin, Brand Manager at Nike said “Everything is not digital. Blend digital with physical.”

This is something that we have witnessed ourselves with one of our clients, Runner’s World. Runner’s World is a magazine aimed at runners and they have taken an integrated approach by driving their readers to their website with ads and articles pointing readers attention to extra content only available on their website. This has allowed  the magazine to leverage their existing readership and build a community around their publication online (With the help of BuddyPress)

Social Media and Mobile

We’ve blogged about the importance and the continued growth of the mobile web at length, here and here. The SMWF once again underscored the mobile web’s importance to the South African market with some interesting statistics:

SA is a Mobile first Market

• 12 million people are currently using the mobile web
• 6 million people are on the traditional web
• The projections for mobile web access in Africa are that it will double year on year
• 80% of status update for Facebook come from mobile platforms
• 91% of people keep their phones within a meters reach 24 hours a day
• The success of advertising on Facebook: In SAFM’s experience, 75% of their Facebook fans come from seeing a Facebook ad promoting their Page.

Mobile types

• Only 5% of cell phones in South Africa are smartphones
• Iphone accounts for 1% of emerging market phones
• Of the 4 Million smart phones in South Africa, half are Blackberry

It seems as though South African apps developers are focused on android first and Iphone second, but one has to wonder if their isn’t a market for Blackberry apps to make some money.

The Social Media World Forum was a good experience. It’s a bit over priced, had some hiccups (competing sound!) and  didn’t offer up any real surprises, but the value of meeting other social media practitioners and hearing their thoughts and insights cannot be over looked. Social Media is a continuously evolving industry and it is important for us serious practitioners to always stay abreast of the latest developments and do our research.

I’ll leave you with, for me, the most significant quote of SMWF 2011:

When it comes to Social Media, you must be prepared to learn, unlearn and relearn.

BuddyPress Integration

Shape Magazine required a solution that would enable their readers to access tailored content on the go. This included the ability to read and post recipes, training logs and food journals to their Shape profiles, and accessing the Shape Magazinecommunity from anywhere – the gym, office, beach or home.By using WPtouch, we were able to render a mobile version of their website that is viewable on any smartphone, extending their web presence to mobile devices. A custom Integration of BuddyPress and Wptouch, allowed us to enable the community features of BuddyPressfor the Shape mobile website. These community features include everything you expect from a social network, including personlized profiles, activity streams, friends, private messaging and journal (custom post type) posting.

Custom Warning Messages

BuddyPress will extend WordPress MU and bring social networking features to a new or existing installation.

As an avid facebook and WordPress user I have taken to the idea of extending WordPress-MU with social networking features very well. Foxinni was the first person to tell me about BP, the I caught my attention immediately. I started testing out the very early stages of the software in May 2008 while preparing to do a talk at WordPress Cape Town Meetup.

Andy Peatling is the lead developer on the BP project. Andy started the project as ChickSpeak.com a WordPress MU Based Social Network, see about blurb below:

ChickSpeak is an organization for young women created to inspire Big Dreams, Strong Values and Success in the world.

Here are some important BP links for more detailed info on the Automattic driven project:

• Testdrive -This is a great place to test out the software with out having to install
• My profile on TestBP.org
• LightSpeed TestBP.org Blog about our BuddyPress Development efforts
• Main Website – Find out all about the project, download and much more
• SVN – Grab the latest code from Subversion
• BuddyPressDev on Twitter – Follow the latest tweets

The past few months LightSpeed has been Contibuting to Change (C2C). Traffic Brand introduced us to the DA who needed a small volunteer registration website called Contribute to Change. We started with a standard 5 page website designed as a landing page for a PPC campaign and volunteer registration formto allow people sign up and help promote the DA.

We have been researching the Obama political campaign and how they built My.BarackObama.com a.k.a MYBO to enabled supporters to be more involved with promoting the party. We have been busy developing BP powered volunteer system to drive the C2C website. This will allow people to join in and help the DA grow its support base. More on how to sign-up to the live system at the end of this month when it launches to the existing & new volunteers.

We will be making use of all the existing BP features and adding some interesting new modules. See details below:

Modules:

1. Authentication modules – Google’s OpenID Endpoint + Facebook Connect
2. Recruit a friend + Contact Importer – Friend importer tool and more advanced tools for recruiting new community members
3. Spread the Word – Tools for mailing the press or prominent blogs
4. User/Volunteer Points System – Volunteers earn points for every action and these are displayed in a sidebar widget
5. Action center – User dashboard page displaying member points, call-to-action tools and much more
6. Import Users – Import existing volunteers into the C2C BP system
7. Events – Create/host an event, find events, featured events
8. Go-door-to-door – Voters use this module to organise neighbourhood walks going door-to-door to discuss and help promote the DA
9. Make Phone Calls – Talk to Voters, record/update details and promote the DA
10. Mobile Theme – mobile theme for buddypress making the site more accessible to users

BuddyPress Modifications:

1. User Sign-up or User Registration needs to be extended and integrated into
2. Members Only system accessible only to registered volunteers
3. Buddy Press Top Menu Bar needs to be extended to cater for the new volunteer tools by adding new quick links

Potential modules:

• Facebook style bottom bar with Jabber Chat built in to enable volunteers to chat to each other trough the system

Some interesting research links:

• BuddyPress: Adding Twitter And Friendfeed
• BuddyPress: Expanding Settings Menu
• BuddyPress: Building Your Own Components With These Building Blocks
• BuddyPress Notes by Lisa Sabin-Wilson
• WP-FBConnect

I will be blogging further information in the weeks to come. Stay tuned in.

My last post for today is about a small module that will help users spread the word about the network. My focus is to create a platform for volunteers to assist in promoting a political party and growing its support base. We are building the following tools to aid the volunteer growth:

• Recruit a friend (includes an address book importer)
• Tell the press / Spread the word – simple form allowing emails to be sent by volunteer under their name to the newspapers
  • Clicking on “spread the word” must bring up the “Send to the Press Form”
  • Form should be populated with the user’s email address.
  • Clicking on the newspaper must populate the “To:” field with the newspaper’s relevant email address.
  • Once the letter is written, the user clicks “send”, and the letter is sent to the newspaper from the user’s personal email address.
• Go-door-to-door – a type of event that calls on fellow volunteers in your area to join and walk around neighbourhood going door to door to discuss and promote the party

Drive community outreach to government and local municipalities

Our aim is to use our volunteers to work for or against parliament and constitutional issues, by helping them generate letters and phone calls to members of parliament, ministers, municipal officials, or other target groups. The tools should let users choose eligible voters and voter groups, identify and prioritize targets, suggest letter text and phone call scripts, deliver letter content by email or fax, and track and monitor the results. We would like promote the outreach campaigns with integrated custom Web pages, outbound email, and more.

Use petitions to identify your most fervent supporters — and to spread the word virally

Create and manage petition campaigns that help you identify your most committed activists, channel their energy, and lead to viral activity and more signups. Petition content and look and feel are fully controllable, and signups are archived and tagged in your customer database so you can quickly build a supporter file around a particular issue of concern. And with “tell-a-friend” functionality, word of your petition campaign can spread around the world at Internet speed.

Speak out to newspapers, opinion leaders, and the public

The “Spread the Word” tool for BuddyPress aims to get thoughts to news editors and opinion leaders, in the real voices of volunteers and supporters. We would pre-populate the system with talking points and sample text, to help make sure that volunteer messages are targeted and focused. The system will keep track of communications so we can follow up where appropriate.

In closing

We need to put the power into the volunteer’s hands and allow them to spread the word for us. As always your feedback is most welcome!

I would like to be able to use OpenID, Facebook Connect and Google Friend Connect authentication services with BuddyPress.

There is already an MU OpenID plugin developed by Automattic, hopefully we can revise this plugin and adapt it for buddypress. See details about plugin below:

Once installed, OpenID 1.1 link tags will be added to the homepage of every hosted weblog. Users can then use their weblog as an OpenID; when they authenticate against third party sites using that URL, WordPress MU will ask them if they wish to share their identity with the site in question. If they say yes (or click “always”) they will be redirected back and logged in to that site.

The plugin also adds a new “OpenID” menu item to the Options tab in the WordPress admin application. This new page allows users to manually add and remove sites from their “always trust” list – although normally they will only modify that list indirectly by clicking the “always” button when they sign in to a site.

The plugin includes simple defence against phishing attacks. If a user tries to sign in with an OpenID but is not logged in to their WordPress MU account they will be told to navigate to the site manually or using a bookmark; presenting a log in form at that point would train users to enter their username and password at the instruction of untrusted sites.

In the above scenario, their attempted OpenID login is recorded in a cookie. When they next log in to the site (within a 5 minute window) they will be taken to the dashboard for the OpenID which they attempted to authenticate and will be presented with a link to continue that action.

In May 2007 facebook launched the Facebook Platform, which allowed third party developers to build rich social applications within Facebook. On the 9th May 2008 facebook announced Facebook Connect the next iteration of Facebook Platform that allows users to “connect” their Facebook identity, friends and privacy to any site. This will enable third party websites to implement and offer even more features of Facebook Platform off of Facebook. Here are just a few of the coming features of Facebook Connect:

• Trusted Authentication
• Real Identity
• Friends Access
• Dynamic Privacy

These are just a few steps Facebook is taking to make the vision of data portability a reality for users worldwide. Hopefully we can integrate this into BuddyPress in the coming months?!

Next item up for discussion is Google Friend Connect, uses OpenID, oAuth and Open Social to let users log in to their favorite apps using a trusted ID provider and then access their friend info from those apps – all while on another website altogether. That could be any website that has chosen apps from the Open Social/ Friend Connect app gallery and pasted the iframe code onto their page.

In closing

We can expand the social networks we build much more rapidly by allowing users to tap into  their own networks. Feedback most welcome!

I am a big fan of the WordPress.com stats plugin and its super to be able to get stats on testbp.org! Thanks Andy for adding in my favourite plugin. If you have a testbp.org blog for BuddyPress I suggest you go and enable the plugin!

• Featured Option – Grow the Team / Recruit 5 friends – Button says “Recruit Friends” – grow the volunteer database
• Spread the word / Send a letter to the press – Button says “Speak Out”, submit to external blogs or simply social bookmarking
• Go door-to-door – Button says “Help Out” – upcoming events, create an event
• Attend an Event – Button says “Join”, schedule, manage, and promote events
• Make Phone Calls – Button says “Make Calls”
• Blogging – blog on the system
• Join a Group – discussion groups, launch user groups along issue or geographic lines, let users create and manage their own user groups,
• Featured content will target campaigns and programs to interested and motivated groups

We aim to motivate members to carry actions that matter with this social points system, the points per section will need to be displayed in the sidebar. The action center and online community tools set the standard for volunteers engagement and participatory content. This powerful suite of community content generation and social networking tools facilitate a range of real-time person-to-person activities, from user profiles to blogs to online forums, that will leave your site visitors with the feeling that your online community is richly alive with content and commitment.

In closing

We need drive people to engage with the system. An action center helps people to find the tools available on the system… Feedback most welcome!

We are busy creating social points system with the aim to allow users to accumulate community karma by participating online. The aim is  manage the point incentives to ensure that as many users as possible get involved and stay involved, taking actions that will help move you toward policy targets or online content goals.

Points are earned each time a user visits and passes time on the site. They will be redeemed for merchandise applicable to the network. We need to kick the program off formally and stimulate new membership. Existing users that recruit a friend or family member.

We are creating a Dashboard or Action Center to drive user interaction with the system. All actions will earn points for the user, but some actions will be weighted more heavily and therefore will earn more points. The Action Center or Dashboard will focus some features key to campaign, each with a “Featured” item section:

• Recruit a Friend – grow the volunteer database
• Events – upcoming events, create an event
• Spread the Word – social bookmarking, email newspapers, submit to external blogs
• Make phone calls
• Go-door-to-door
• Blogging – blog on the system

Our aim is to grow the userbase and provide viral tools to spread the word about the campaign’s message further than just the network. Feedback would be great!

• Logged in user would like to create an event
• User will click a menu item in top bar “My Events”, this menu item should drop down with the following items displayed:
  • Create an Event
  • Find Events
  • Manage Events
  • Attend Events
• The next step is to bring up a landing page for the events component
  • A good example of an events list page is facebook events
• When Events dashboard loads you will see a the following:
  • Directory listing of upcoming events in your area
  • Featured events
  • Create an Event big button
  • Browse Events – general browsing tool
  • Search events box
  • Export Events (Google, iCal or Outlook)
• The events component should have a Sidebar Widget always visible

So now I have described the overview of the events module lets drill down into a bit more detail per page, see below.

Events Listings / Browse Events

• Filter mechanism to see events in your neighbourhood
  • By area
  • By Date
  • By Type
• General listing of all upcoming events is the default display when browsing events, details displayed:
  • Date
  • Title
  • Tagline
  • Hosted by
  • Type
  • Where
  • When
  • Your RSVP
• Friend’s / Neighbour’s Events
  • Date
  • Title
  • Tagline
  • Hosted by
  • Friends Attending
  • Type
  • Where
  • When
  • Your RSVP

Event Invites

• Users can send an invite message via system and system sends notification email with the following details:
  • Title
  • Day of week, Month, Date, Time at Venue, Geographic Location
  • Invite by Member Name (who invited me)
  • RSVP message (optional)
  • Will you attend – Yes, No, Maybe?
  • Remove from my events
• Once selection has been made then a confirmation message should display to confirm the user’s attendance

Single Events Page

• Event Info
• Title/Event Name:
• Tagline:
• Host:
• Type: Go-door-todoor, hand out leaflets, house meetings,
• Description:
• Network becomes “Geographic Location”
• Time and Place
• Start Time:
• End Time:
• Location:
• Street:
• City/Town:
• Contact Info
• Contact Person:
• Phone:
• Email Address:
• Confirmed Guests should display in a section
• Discussion “Wall”, RSVP message are posted to the “wall”
• Sidebar widgets
• Invite more people, earn points
• Remove from My Events
• Admins for event
• Your RSVP status

General Events Notes

• Admins to be able to create events and send to an entire network, BUT standard users will only be able to invite volunteers that belong to the same groups as them
• Events hosts need to be able to upload a list of actual attendees of the events, all members who attend will be able to score points for attending

In closing

I feel that the events module is a big must for just about any social network and could add huge value to everyone using buddypress! Please send me your feedback….