WordPress MU enables you to build a complete, professional blog network. Each user gets their own blog, and can choose their favorite templates and plug-ins, and develop their own content. WordPress MU powers some of the largest blog networks in the world, including the mighty WordPress.com ñ home to thousands of bloggers.
This book will take you through the setup of a WordPress MU-powered blogging network, using a real, working blog network as an example, so that you can follow the creation process step-by-step. Your blogging network will be complete with professional features such as friends lists, status feeds, groups, forums, photo galleries, and more, to build your own WordPress.com ñ a place where users can quickly come and create a blog for themselves.
The book starts with a clean install of WordPress MU, and as you work through the book, you will build the blog network, and add on more and more features, all seamlessly integrated to achieve a professional, custom-built look.You will find new themes and plug-ins added to the site, as well as customization of the WordPress multi-user code. The book will also look at ways you can manage your community, and keep your site safe and secure, ensuring that it is a spam-free, enjoyable community for your users. In the later chapters, you will add a forum using the bbPress script, and add BuddyPress social networking components to your site.
Imagine how good you'll feel when your first WordPress multi-user blog network launches.
Set up and run your own blog network using the multi-user version of the most popular open source blogging platform
Monetize your blog network and earn revenue from using simple banner advertisements to paid upgrades and revenue sharing models
Give users a chance to interact with each other and build community spirit by integrating a forum with your site
Hook your blog network up to other social networking sites such as Twitter
Increase traffic to your site with tagging, trackbacks, pings, and RSS
Add popular features such as gravatars, polls, photo galleries, friends lists, and more
Secure your blog network, and protect it from spam with reCAPTCHA and Bad Behaviour
Implement backup and performance optimization techniques that will ensure that your blog network will be capable of handling large numbers of visitors