WordPress parent company Automattic got good blog-press today with the hire-acquire of social networking plug-in suite BuddyPress, further indication that the blogging company is preparing to blur the lines in social media and challenge the likes of Facebook and MySpace. The elephant in the middle of the room, though, is data portability and distributed social networking.
Now that there are millions upon millions of dollars in play, is Automattic moving toward a strategy that will prioritize growing its own market share far beyond (and sometimes at the expense of) a broader vision of user-centric social networking?
BuddyPress is a social networking framework built on top of WordPress code and is seen put to use well at ChickSpeak, a social network for hot, vapid sorority “chicks.” It’s a solid social networking code base but doesn’t attempt to solve the fundamental problem with social networks: silos. (”Get me out of LinkedIn and onto ChickSpeak!” the suits are shouting silently.)
Distributed social networking advocates are working to create bridges between different networks so you can take your data from one to the other and back again. Drupal to MySpace to Ning.