Purple Hazard

Built of the Top Gear style Speed WordPress theme. Theme is dark and busy, with a featured post section.

TopGear style for a BuddyPress powered site with the Speed WordPress Theme theme, featuring a three column fluid layout with a magazine style, header changer is built in and shows on each page load a different background in the header area. -FreeBPthemes.com

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I’ve noticed more and more visitors come here looking for Social Networking content, themes, plugins and directories.

To help you out I’ve opened three new sections in my free link directory, Ning, Elgg and BuddyPress. So if you have a site powered by any of those platforms, feel free to add it to my directory.

I usually don’t post my most difficult questions in my blog, due to the fact that I’m the one who is supposed to sort it out and THEN post about it. This time it’s different.

I recently made a post about the new Elgg theme Orkut, which I’m using in my new blogging network, but shortly after I discovered CosmicBuddy, the BuddyPress theme. Now CosmicBuddy provides everything that Elgg already had, which made me use Elgg in the first place.

The question is, start over with BuddyPress and the new theme, or stick with Elgg, and a much easier to use Admin interface?

If you think you can help me solve this question please drop me a comment.

Ever wanted to run a site similar to Facebook or Orkut? Well, now you can with Elgg. Elgg is a free, fully functioning open source social networking platform.

Elgg is very easy to install and comes preloaded with a set of plugins such as :

1. Blogs (Users can open and run their own blogs)

2. Microblogging (Such as Twitter and Facebook status updates.)

3. Messageboard (Such as on Blogcatalog profile area)

4. Gallery

5. Groups ( Users can start groups)

6. Media Sharing (Users can upload images, videos and files)

If you’re not happy with the preloaded plugins you can download or request more plugins in the plugin community. You can also download and install new themes from the theme repository.  You can do all this by simply uploading new plugins or themes to one folder and activating them.

If you would like to see Elgg in action visit this DEMO.

Feel free to register and share in our blogging community.

Over the course of the last few weeks I’ve been comparing BuddyPress with Elgg. As many of you know BuddyPress is a suite of WordPress plugins and themes, each adding a distinct new feature. Basically a social network if you set it up correctly. Elgg is very similar is a Free Open Source Social Networking & Social Publishing Platform.

What I found is that BuddyPress and Elgg is different in so many ways and the limited time I spent on these two distinct products is a far cry from enough to lead me to a conclusive argument.

It comes down to your self. You will have to test both. So far Elgg is my favorite.

I enjoy using Elgg so much, I decided to setup a Social Network for Bloggers, called SonOfaBlog (SOB). If you have some time come over and join the community. I even plan on inviting some Elgg developers over to improve the user experience.

River Run is a 2 column, right sidebar, adsense ready free WordPress Theme.

Very nice header layout.

Download Here.

BuddyDress recently launched the upgraded version of their very popular DarkPress BuddyPress theme. The updated version is now compatible with Firefox 3.5 and the newly released BuddyPress 1.3

Eat your hearts out kids.

BuddDress Official Post.

Download Theme - You will have to register for a free account.

Meg4 Magazine is a, you guessed it, magazine style, free wordpress theme. Perfect for those blogs about what’s happening.

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Nice, user-friendly free wp theme, with the ever so popular 125×125 banner ad spots. Called Browny because it’s brown.

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This a question bloggers, like myself, tend to ask every time we think about monetizing our blog. I constantly go through a phase where I move my Adsense ads OR try out new systems like Adbrite or Bidvertiser.

No matter which ad system you are currently using, this little Ad “Heat Map” from the guys over at Google should give you a good starting point for ad placements.

I would recommend only using the Heat Map as a starting point, but as they mention on the Google Page, try to understand your readers. Don’t bombard them with irrelevant hawker ads. Always think about your readers first.

Red – Good Place

White – Bad Place

Ad Placement Heat Map

Heat Map

https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=17954