Kenya Tweets released a report on the activity of Kenyans on Twitter around Oct-Nov 2010. It provided some very wonderful insights. For example, one of them was that Kenyans follow more than they are followed. Anyway, that is an analysis we will carry out another day. This article is closely linked to the aspect of following/subscribing. Have you noticed that whoever you follow on any microblogging site will end up following you in return? But there are some who even after follow them will never reciprocate or will take time doing so. It can be a little annoying to learn that the person continuously updates their profile without showing any interest in your "follow". Here is why some may never subscribe to your updates:

1. You are a business. (Can this be a reason?) Your profile image is your business logo. Microblogging is bent towards inter-personal relationships. Some microbloggers may not follow businesses since they are scared that you might flood their streams with company updates, promotional messages and the like.
2. You do not have profile image. The default avatars used on certain microblogging sites are not attractive in any way. So why do you still have one while your account is now 3 months old on the site? Upload your photo today. It sure does help in increasing your followers since they get to see the person behind that account.
3. The ring in your name. Can you follow a person whose username is "ma1k55"? Trust OSS developers to conjure up such usernames for their microblogging profiles?
4. Your interests do not match with theirs. Show me your updates and I will tell you what interests you. If your updates point to a person interested in say American soccer, do you expect a person working in an NGO in a 3rd World country to follow you back? :-(
5. You both update your profiles at different times. This one isn't really a strong reason as to why microblogger B may not follow you. However, it does have an influence for those who are following many people. If they cannot see an @reply in their stream from you then they might take time subscribing to you.
6. Your updates look spammy. No need of an explanation on this one.
7. Going, going, gone! You stopped posting some 2 months ago. So, what is the worth of subscribing to an inactive account?
8. They are grappling with a heavy stream. Sorry, they can't add another person into their network.

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There is only one social network right now that puts a cap on the number of friends one can have. And that is the The Personal Network stroke Path. Based on Dunbar's research results, the guys behind it have put a limit of 50 friends for each user. And who are these guys? Dave Morin, once an executive at Facebook, and Shawn Fanning, cofounder of Napster. This gives credence to a view that I had that even though one can have hundreds to thousands of friends/followers on a social network, there is usually a small group that one particularly listens to or follows keenly. Here is how Dave Morin puts it:
"You usually have about five people whom you trust most, 20 whom you consider your BFF's (what's this, anyone?) and about 50 or so who are your personal network."

P.S: Did I hear one scientist say on BBC radio that man's evolutionary limit of their friendship networks is 150 people? May be Morin and Fanning aren't that off the mark in trying this out.

P.P.S: You can read the site's blog here.

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On the previous post, I outlined how you can set up a microblogging site using Buddypress. Note that I didn't specify on what Wordpress variant, as in Wordpress MU or the single user version. Well, since I installed the plugin on the single user site I see no problem if used on your personal blog (wrong?).
But here is one thread from the Buddypress Forums that is....: Installing Buddypress. And the jury is out.

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You should forgive me for this. This long entry was supposed to posted last year but due to procrastination...
If you really don't want to muck around with renting virtual private servers so as to run a powerful microblogging script, you can cheaply and easily create a microblogging service using Buddypress . Buddypress is a Wordpress plugin which you can easily install to your Wordpress blog to create a microblog. Twitteronia (service unavailable) is one such instance using this plugin.

Installing Wordpress

The first thing we should do is to install Wordpress. Hope you've got your domain name and hosting ready at this point! Now:

1. Download all the files that are required: the latest Wordpress release, Buddypress zip files or tarball, and Buddypress theme files.
2. Decompress the Wordpress zip file or tarball and upload the folder to your server.
3. Login into cPanel (I'm assuming your host is using cPanel). Go to "MySQL Databases".
4. Now let us create a database.Go to "Create Database". Give a name to your database plus a secure password. Click "Create" to create your database.
5. Go to "Create User" and create a user for this database. Ensure that this database user has all the privileges of accessing the database.
6. Now let us edit this file: the "wp-config.php" file that is in the Wordpress folder you just uploaded. Mind you, you'll be using a text editor here (Notepad++is my favorite). You can also use cPanel's File Manager application that has a text editor to do this.
7. To edit the "wp-config.php" file, involves answering 3 secret questions and also inserting your database username, database name and password. Do just that and save your changes. (UPDATE: If you are using Notepad++ to edit this file, you'll have to edit the file on your computer first before uploading to your server).
8. Let us turn to installing your script. Point your browser to the installer script. This should bring up a form where you'll have to fill in the name of your blog, your admin name and admin password. Click on the "Create" button. The installer will now connect to the database that you created and create tables and then populated it with data.
9. You have now successfully created your Wordpress blog. Hurray! Celebrate. You can now start posting, changing its themes and toying around with its widgets but....

Hey! Weren't we out to create a microblog in the first place. Oops, there is still some work to be done.

For the creation of your Wordpress database, you can use PHPMyAdmin too. Simply go to PHPMyAdmin. This will bring up the homepage listing all the databases on your account. Go to "Create Database". Chooser a name for your Wordpress database and then create it. You don't need to touch the other selection lists on this page. Now your new Wordpress database will be added to the others on your account.

Installing Buddypress

You are just close to having your own microblog.

1. Upload the Buddypress zip files to the "plugins" folder in the Wordpress folder.
2. Go to your administration's panel. Under the "Plugins" section, your Buddypress plugin should be available. Click on "Activate". Wordpress will first unzip the file and then activate it. To bypass this, just unzip your Buddypress download on your computer and then upload it to the "plugins" folder. If you go to the "Plugins" section, Buddypress should be available. Activate it. This is quicker than the previous step.
3. Unzip your Buddypress themes locally and then upload them to the "themes" folder in the Wordpress folder. Now go to the "Appearance" section in your Wordpress administration panel. Activate the theme that you want.
4. Visit your blog. OMG, it just looks like a microblogging site.... with your blog's name on it. Now you can post status updates. To post entire blog posts you'll have to go back to your admin section and create an entry. Woo hoo!

The beautiful thing about this plugin is that has got cool themes related to it. If you just don't like the default theme or if you want to clone Facebook's theme, take a look at the Fishbook and FaceLook themes. Above all, you can use this plugin to create a microblog on shared hosting. Cheap, isn't it? For those who would love to bring in their friends into the site for some action...

Wordpress MU

...Wordpress MU is just the script for you. With this script, you can let in more users onto the site with only a single installation. Couple that with the Buddypress plugin and we'll be talking of an online microblogging service like these 10 sites..

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