I use Simple:Press on a membership site that I co-run with a partner. Looking for a “stickier” more Facebook-like social network platform for another membership site I started, I installed BuddyPress. I LOVE the social functionality (people can PM each other, comment on each other’s walls, there’s an ongoing activity stream showing what’s going on in the entire site…), but the bbPress forums that supposedly sync with BuddyPress are AWFUL. They are so opaque and frustrating to use, they drove people away! Plus BuddyPress is incompatible with so many plugins and systems I use that it has become impossible.
Too bad, since it’s a great concept, but BuddyPress has to go…
So I’m remodeling, and keep going back and forth about whether to use S:P, or try to find an alternative social network platform.
I’ve searched this forum to see if anyone has another social network platform that they’ve integrated with S:P but haven’t found anything. Does anyone have a social network that they like? I really want to combine the best features of a social network, with the solid usability and searchability of a Simple:Press forum, but hours of searching have not uncovered anything.. I find it hard to believe that nobody has created this yet, but apparently they haven’t…
There are certainly hosted solutions (Ning and the like), but I want to avoid “digital sharecropping” if I can. Plus I personally find Ning very confusing and non-intuitive.
Thanks for any advice/suggestions!