Buddypress screengrab

>> What is BuddyPress? See Alick’s previous post.

Before starting to install BuddyPress you need to use WordPress MU. Once uploaded onto your server you will be guided through the installation. This includes the standard email and database details but you are also asked whether to use sub-domains or sub-directories for each user’s blogs, e.g. blog.example.com or example.com/blog.

On the first install I went for sub-domains, everything installed correctly. We could have multiple users and access each control panel but there was a problem trying to access everyone’s blogs. As I installed WordPress MU onto a shared server blog.example.com gave a ’shared ip’ error. You will only be able to use sub-domains on a dedicated server.

Once re-installing (you can just delete wp-config.php!) I chose sub-directories, wow! Huge breakdown. WordPress MU gave a redirect loop error, I couldn’t even access wp-login! After searching through a few forums I started to find this was a common error.

The solution:
Many forum users say to ‘clear your cookies’ which in a lot of cases seems to work. Other people suggest modifying the SECRET_SALT so WordPress generates a new code – SECRET_SALT is auto-generated by the install for wp-config.php.

But the one I found to work was by bradleyland.net. Basically just delete wp-config.php and do the setup again. From what I can tell this resolves both the solutions above so if you have tried one and it didn’t work, try the other too.

Installing BuddyPress
Once WordPress MU is up and running BuddyPress is fairly simple, I didn’t have any errors getting this to work first time. The read-me.txt file is useful but it doesn’t tell you every step, I would suggest following their online guide.

Internet advertising in Britain was the only ad medium to grow in 2008, rising 17 percent and bucking the overall 3.5 percent industry fall, according to the latest reports.

The reasons? Pay-per-click and online display advertising offer businesses what TV, radio, mail and press simply can’t – total accountability, the flexibility to adjust and test advertising messages in real time and pinpoint targeting of your desired audiences.

There are millions of places on the internet where you can buy advertising and lots of different ways you can do it. Advertising comes down to two things – you’re either building your brand or you want to elicit some direct response. There are distinct strategies for both.

In terms of building brand – it’s important to establish what kind of websites have a commercial offering that’s right for you and a relevant audience. You could buy an ad on the front page of Yahoo! and reach many millions of people from all walks of life – it’ll be priced accordingly. But you may find that there are websites that cost less and work better, helping you to access a relevant niche audience.

The migglemedia team can advise you on where you should advertise, what your mix of branded and direct spend should be, bargain advertising opportunities and how to design compelling creative.

Based in the UK’s silicon city – Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, contact miggle.co.uk for website development, content management and online media services in the UK and worldwide.

New things happen on the Internet all the time. It’s an evolving medium – that’s one of the best things about it. This latest development has really got us excited though: the launch of .tel domains.

What’s it all about?

.tel is a new top level domain (TLD) like a .com or a .co.uk, yet different in one key respect: the way it uses the Internet’s ‘phone book’, DNS (Domain Name System).

Up until now, everytime you access a website, the address you type in is translated, by DNS, into the set of numbers that the website lives under. Your computer (or mobile phone) then busies itself with retrieving the webpages. With .tels, it’s all completely different as all the information in a .tel is stored by the DNS. This means that the DNS doesn’t need to look anywhere else for the info, so it can deliver the information that lives under yourbusiness.tel super quickly.

A .tel domain can either complement your existing website or act as a stand-alone website if you don’t yet have one. All the information that lives at yourbusiness.tel is viewable in a web browser (e.g. Internet Explorer or FireFox) as a webpage.

Because of their speed, .tel domains have significant advantages for web-enabled mobile phones – many of which still download standard web pages quite slowly. Also, because you can publish pretty much any contact information on a .tel, customers are just one click from your website, your email or from making a call.

With a .tel domain you can:

Join a global online directory that provides you instant worldwide exposure…

Integrate all your means of communication in a single place under your control…

Update and manage your contact information and keywords in real time…

Increase your search engine visibility through descriptive keywords…

Provide a fast way for your customers to connect with you in a single click from any mobile device…

How are .tel domains different to .coms?

The makers of .tel reckon that .tel domains could be as big as .com. We’re not going to be as bullish as .tel’s inventors because the invention of .com was a once in a lifetime phenomenon. But .tel will be big and we think businesses should get on board – not just to have a cool domain name, because this is NOT what .tel is about – but to get to use part of the internet, DNS, the web’s engine room, that other domains can’t exploit.

Without getting too technical, .tel domains use of DNS allows them to deliver several advantages. The .tels work really quickly on mobile phones – putting users one click away from making calls, sending you a mail or browsing your website. And because changes you make to your .tel are instantaneous (or as near as), anyone or anything that references your .tel has access to the latest, most up-to-date info about your business.

Exciting new opportunities with .tel domains

There are a number of other exciting aspects to .tel domains – opportunities for social networking and location based services being amongst our most hotly anticipated. Also, .tel development will not stand still. Think of some of the first .com pages you ever looked at, back when your mobile phone was brick sized and no one had thought of putting a browser on it – how far they’ve come. .tel has also been developed with a view to evolve. Watch this space for more .tel news very soon.

At miggle, we’ll be building a few .tels of our own. We can build your .tel pages too. For more information on .tels, contact the miggleweb team.

Based in the UK’s silicon city – Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, contact miggle.co.uk for website development, content management and online media services in the UK and worldwide.

An active community of users can be great for increasing engagement on your site and for your business as a whole. However, it’s no longer a case on the Internet of ‘build it and they will come’. The community elements of your site need a hook and they’ll need a certain level of effort to start them off and to keep them running.

Users will ‘pay’ to join your community using personal data as the currency. You need to give them something back of value that they can’t get elsewhere. Unmet needs on the web are hard to find these days!

Another point to consider: though you’re building community elements to benefit your business, the dialogue and the interaction is owned by the members. They may not behave as you hoped and they may take the conversation where you never dreamed they would. This can be as much opportunity as threat if you manage it correctly.

If you are going to build a community, what’s your hook?

The best community sites have hooks. Flickr has pictures, YouTube has video, LastFM has music, Yahoo! Answers has questions. Facebook, Bebo and Twitter are built around people – the various tools they supply being able to allow people to share interests. Blogs are built around certain subject matter, forums help people resolve problems.

Between them, all the sites above have millions of users. Those users have to manage many different profiles, as well as the usernames and passwords they use to manage email, online banking, telephony services, etc. If you build another network you are throwing something else into the mix – something else to remember and you’ll be competing for online time against bigger players. That doesn’t mean that you should not try and build the community tools your site needs – but if you think you’ll struggle to make those stand out in a crowd, think about how maybe you could become active within existing communities. Your existing and future customers are already active there after all – and there are great opportunities to use these sites as a pool from which you can fish users.

Which existing community sites could you focus on? Where are the most appealing audiences?

Think about your own use of social networks and communities. Of the sites you use, how are they making money – and how have they made money out of you? Do these communities offer direct revenue generating opportunities, or are the way they contribute to profits more subtle than that?

How will building a community add to your bottom line?

Let’s imaging for a moment that you could invite all the users of Bebo – a site popular with kids – or Facebook to your house or office. Think of what provisions you’d have to make. It’s the same online. Your community needs to be managed, maintained, listened to and catered for. If they don’t – back to the offline analogy – they will trash your house and leave and it’ll look in a pretty poor state for the next set of visitors.

How will you keep the community alive, engaged, entertained and legal?

If you read your news from bbc.co.uk, chances are you’ll go back everyday if you like the coverage. If you meet your life partner on match.com, you’ll never use the site again. Both sites have delivered, but only one retains its customers. The one that can’t needs to be able to continually drive awareness of itself, while always appearing fresh.

What will be our response when our community members don’t play ball and do the things on our site the marketing team promised they would?

The migglemedia team can help you address all the factors you need to take into account before venturing into the world of online communities and social media websites.

Based in the UK’s silicon city – Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, contact miggle.co.uk for website development, content management and online media services in the UK and worldwide.