How to turn WordPress into a Social Network Site

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WordPress offers a fascinatingly wide range of options: thanks to the power and the creativity of the open source community, the world's most popular CMS has developed from a “blog-only” product into a multifaceted platform. Hundreds of plugins are waiting to cater almost every web publisher's needs. These days, two new plugins take WordPress to the next level by integrated elaborate social network features. BuddyPress is now available at version 1.2 which plays along well with standard WP-installations; the previous version required WP multiuser edition. And then there's Mingle, a new brilliant extension by Blair Williams, author of the (genius!) PrettyLink plugin.

Even though both plugins offer similar functionalities, they take a completely different approach at turning WordPress into a social network. While BuddyPress aims at running a stand-alone social network site, Mingle extends the community capabilities of nay existing blog. I installed it here on datadirt yesterday. Curious for a test-drive? Just click the new link Profile in the main menu! In the following posting I'll explain why extending a blog with social network features is generally a smart idea. Read more

The common house cat

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… is rarely seen in nature these day; I was lucky enough to shoot one in Eastern Tyrol:

house cat

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Musicblogocide 2010: Google shuts ’em down

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When Public Enemy released their classic hit Shut 'em down, they were criticizing authorities. Yet recently, Google has given the track's title a completely new meaning: without any prior warning, the company shut down at least six renowned music blogs hosted on Blogger/Blogspot. Or, as Paidcontent.org puts, it, “wiped them from the internet”: Read more

How to impress a French girl

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I'm not a big fan of Google in general: there services are not that great, but there's no alternative. But it regularly frightens me how this machine works. Today, European director Steve Rogers told an Austrian newspaper: “When a company gets bigger, it is seen as intransparent. But we try to be as transparent as possible.” Right after that Mr. Rogers showed what he really means when he answered the next two questions about Google's situation in China: “I'm not allowed to comment on this.” (Kleine Zeitung, February 9th 2010, page 29). Temper, temper! Read more

Videocamp Vienna 2010 Pictures

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Thanks and shout-outs to all sponsors, visitors, talkers and hosts at Videocamp Vienna 2010! Organizing the event together with Austrian television station ATV and Datenwerk was a great experience – and we're all very satisfied with the premiere of Austria's first online video barcamp. Knowledge was transferred, experiences were shared, a lot of visitors had to update their “met in real life” Twitter list – just the way we like it. I'm already looking forward to Videocamp Vienna 2010!


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No bright future for Google Wave?

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When Google launched their latest gadget “Wave”, everybody was so keen on getting an invitation – I've sent out about 60 invites via my blogs, yet I haven't been using Wave a lot. Neither in the beginning nor lately: it's lame (even when used with Chrome, large multimedia Waves are basically unusable on netbooks), it lacks a lot of important features and – most important of all – it's generally quite unsexy, According to Silicon Alley Insider, I'm not alone with this opinion.

Their Chart of the Day clearly shows a rapidly decreasing number of users, even geeks seem to have abandonned the ship for now. It won't probably sink any time soon, but it definitely won't replace e-mail (that's on of Google's idea behind the system) in the near future.

This kind of launch scenario is pretty unusual for the big G: usually, when a new service gets launched, an immediate success story follows. Just remember Gmail or Analytics – those products basically took existing services like web statistics or web mail inboxes, improved them in a major way and gave them away for free: Gmail offers nearly unlimited storage, Analytics is a mighty tracking tool (I still prefer Clicky by far though – it's all about the realtime), but Wave is actually the first genuinely new service which Google has ever offered.

So I wonder if we're just witnessing a temporary decrease in usage numbers, or if Wave just offers the wrong bells and whistles. Because this might be the first #fail in the company's history… So what's your opinion on the future of Google Wave?

It can’t be that easy: Will Smith on success

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I never was a big fan of Will Smith's music, but I definitely did enjoy some of his movies. Yet I had no idea that Will has such interesting views on life, ethics and success – take ten minutes and listen to the whole interview; it's worth your time, I promise:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLN2k0b3g70[/youtube] Read more

Stoni Mountains: HiKE – A Freeride Project in the Austrian Alps

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I got to know Martin Stoni when I worked for Project Powderstorm, an online snowboard / skate community. When T-Mobile took over our main sponsor max.mobil, the German company cancelled all skate-sponsoring activities and decided to go sports-mainstream. The job was great though: spending nearly every winter weekend in a different ressort, we covered various snowboard events online and we always found time ride the slopes ourselves. Martin Stoni did all the videoclips back then. He stuck to his genre and got even better: these days he published his freeride magnum opus “HiKE” online – enjoy the wonderful pictures but don't blame me mor any resulting mountain craving!

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/8119208[/vimeo] Read more

Video Camp Vienna 2010: Moving online pictures

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Vienna's first VideoCamp ever (a BarCamp specializing in digital video) takes place at Media Quarter St. Marx on the 30th of January 2010. ATV, Austria's leading private tv station, Datenwerk Innovation Agency and datenschmutz (aka my German-language blog) are extremely proud to invite podcasters, tv professionals, video-freaks and other moving-picture geeks to join an intense day of sessions and discussions.

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New Job Title: I’m a Digital Renaissance Man

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Effective immediately: I hereby declare that I'm a Social Media Consultant no longer. When every other script kiddie started to call themselves a SEO Expert, I switched my job description. But nowadays our web 2.0 is full of Social Media Consultants – and some of them send me questions like “How can I publish a trackback?” or “What's the difference between a Facebook page and a group”? I wonder what kind of “consulting” their customers get… And this is why I switch again: from this day on, I'm a Digital Renaissance Man.

Btw: in German, this title translates to Digital Universalgelehrter. Plus: it's about time to give DRM a completely new meaning!

Dexter, Season 4: Dex vs. Trinity

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If you haven't seen the 4th season of “Dexter” yet, then don't watch this video – not even the first few seconds, because they contain a serious spoiler. In case you already know how the cat-and-mouse game between Dex and Trinity ends, you are going to like this sitdown with Michael C. Hall and John Lithgow:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B08pNlEL_JA[/youtube] Read more