Thripp.com is a new WordPress MU-powered social network focused on blogging, with the goal of harnessing technology to work with you—to enable your creativity by empowering your voice, while backing you with a community of supporters so you never have to go it alone. I just launched this on 2008 May 24, so we have a long road ahead. Join if you want to build a community that trusts it’s citizens.

Right now, the community is mostly me. I read everything posted and am active at my own Thripp.com blog, so you can count on the site progressing.

So far, I’ve implemented basic networking features: comment threading with email alerts, a friends system, subscriptions, and comment tracking, a forum, a blogs directory, collaborative blogging, mirroring to LiveJournal, Facebok photos integration, privacy controls, sitewide latest comments and posts lists, and social bookmarking. I’m planning to adapt BuddyPress to add more stuff, once it’s released.

Read the features page for lots more. But there are no themes. Just the one you see now.

You can register and start blogging, or you can post to the forum and comment on most blogs as a guest.

Featured blogs:
What’s life all about? by Hong
Photography by JT
Brilliant Photography by Richard X. Thripp [My site, with special features not yet available to the community.]
Daytona State College News by Richard X. Thripp [At DaytonaState.org yet on the Thripp.com network.]

Thanks for visiting!
Richard

Stats: Thripp.com has 214 blogs and 255 users.

I’ve put into place the final list of reserved names for Thripp.com. These are the names you cannot register as the part before “.thripp.com”. All these names are also reserved at DaytonaState.org.

beta browse chat email example f forum forums help join lib library mail my news photos photos-g2 proxy richardx rx rxthripp s search shop thripp tiny tn today u www x you z

beta.thripp.com: Reserved for beta testing.

browse.thripp.com, news.thripp.com, today.thripp.com: Reserved for a community zeitgeist.

chat.thripp.com: Reserved for possible chatrooms.

email.thripp.com, mail.thripp.com: In use for Thripp.com email accounts (let me know if you want one).

example.thripp.com: Reserved for demonstrations.

f.thripp.com, forum.thripp.com, forums.thripp.com: f.thripp.com is in use for the community forums, and in the future, forum and forums.thripp.com may redirect there.

help.thripp.com: Reserved for possible help pages.

join.thripp.com: Reserved as a possible registration point.

lib.thripp.com, library.thripp.com: In use / reserved for The Thripp Public Library.

my.thripp.com, u.thripp.com, you.thripp.com: Reserved for user homepages.

photos.thripp.com, photos-g2.thripp.com: In use for my photo archive + Gallery2 backend.

proxy.thripp.com: In use for a simple web proxy with PHProxy. May be developed in the future.

richardx.thripp.com, rx.thripp.com, rxthripp.thripp.com, thripp.thripp.com: Reserved for me.

s.thripp.com, search.thripp.com: Reserved for a possible search engine.

shop.thripp.com: Reserve for possible shops.

tiny.thripp.com: Reserved for an image or file-hosting service. A working demo is in place.

tn.thripp.com: In use for thumbnailing services.

www.thripp.com: Reserved, because a lot of people type www before URLs.

x.thripp.com: Renamed, permanently redirects to th8.us.

z.thripp.com: In use for my URL obfuscation service.

I could’ve reserved a lot more names, but there’s no need to. If someone develops something great at blogs.thripp.com or some other great domain, I don’t want to be the one to stop him.

I’ve repealed the previous list:

- about account accounts activate activation admin admins administrator atom beta blog blogs cgi-bin comments confirm directory donate features feed feeds forum forums g2data g2queue help home icons includes index invite join latest-comments latest-posts lib list log-in log-out login logout mail main members mission news page pages photos post posts profiles register repository richardxthripp-files richardxthripp-photos root rss rthripp rx sign-up signup subdoms the-mission thripp tn today users web wp-activate wp-admin wp-atom wp-content wp-includes wp-login wp-signup www x

A lot of interesting names are now open. My favorite is -.thripp.com. Yes, you can register for it. Don’t waste it; use it for something great!

Finding your name

Just type in yourname.thripp.com or yourname.daytonastate.org into your web browser’s address bar. If it’s available, you’ll see the registration page with the name already filled in.

I’ve created a WordPress plugin called Tweet This, which lets your readers share any of your posts on Twitter by clicking an icon that looks like a bird. It’s active on all Thripp.com and DaytonaState.org blogs! Try it out with the buttons here.

Check out the Thripp.com and DaytonaState.org registration pages. Signing up for a new blog just got easier: you can set your password right from the page:

Before, you’d be emailed a random password, but that isn’t convenient. With this solution we have the best of both worlds: you can leave the fields blank to get a random password by email, or you can fill them in to choose your password right away, and it will still be emailed to you for your records.

Enjoy!

I’ve added a value metric in the sidebar of every blog! Also, there are stats on the average number of words per post, number of tags and categories, and the number of threaded comments and pingbacks.

My blog is worth $829,191. This development blog is worth $7189. Daytona State College News is valued at $2440. VicAndHelen.com is a measly $15. My mom’s blog is worth $1270, while my cousin’s is just $73. A new blog is worth $1.

What’s your blog worth? Check your sidebar now. If you haven’t posted in a couple months, you’ll have to make a new post or re-save an old one for the stats to be right.

How are these stats calculated? By multiplying the blog’s word count by the tangent of the number of comments in degrees plus 0.1 times the number of spam comments, all divided by the cosine of the number of threaded comments in degrees, then flipped to positive if negative, of course!

Enjoy, and keep blogging away.

Tag, date, and category archives have a new format: they show the first 100 words of each post, including HTML and images. To read more you have to click “CONTINUE READING.”

Before, they were full-text just like regular pages, basically becoming a holding pen for posts. Most people browsing archive pages don’t want to read everything; they’re skimming for information. But the reason I refused to use WordPress’ the_excerpt tag is because it strips images or HTML. Since my Thripp.com blog is a photo-blog with the photos at the top of each post, that is unacceptable.

After much searching, I’ve found a better way: a plugin called The Excerpt Reloaded. It lets you customize the excerpts by using a new function, the_excerpt_reloaded, instead of the_excerpt. I’ve customized and activated it for all blogs on Thripp.com and DaytonaState.org.

I dropped the file in the mu-plugins folder, after removing the changelog to possibly save resources. Since the Thripp.com network only has one theme, I just edited index.php to use the_excerpt_reloaded on archives and category/tag pages. I don’t use separate templates for those pages; I just use conditional tags in one index.php file.

if ( is_category() || is_archive() )

the_excerpt_reloaded(100, ‘<a><abbr><acryonym><b><blockquote><code><em><i><strike><strong><u><img><p><ul><li><script><h1><h2><h3><h4><h5><h6>’, ‘content’, true, ‘… CONTINUE READING’, false, 1, true, false, ‘p’, ‘Click to see whole entry.’, 1);

else the_content(__(’… CONTINUE READING’));

It’s as simple as that! Check out an example here. This is easier to skim, looks good, and will help our Google ranks.

Remember that when you write or edit a post or page, you can enter your own excerpt under Advanced > Excerpt, and that will be used instead. I never enter an excerpt… I don’t think it’s worth the effort. But you can if you’d like.

Check out Comments > My Comments on your blog’s menu, thanks to this WordPress MU plugin. I removed the one under Dashboard, since this one seems better. You see the comments you’ve made at other blogs recently, and comments after them.

We already have a good comment threading/email system, but this is good if you’ve just forgotten where you’ve commented recently. You can click “dismiss” on any comment to remove it from the page (the comment won’t be delete though; only the owner of the blog you commented on can do that).

Also: I removed Design > Themes, because there is only one theme (this one) anyway. Now Design only has Widgets underneath it.

Check this out:

That’s what you’ll see on your blog when you’re logged in. You can post right from the home page! Sure, you can load up the write post screen, but that’s slower and more complicated (WordPress MU’s backend is a bit bloated). When you click in a box, the default text is highlighted so you can type right over it. You can save your post as a draft, in which case you’ll be redirected to see it in the list on your drafts page, or you can publish it immediately.

From the home page you can set the title, tags, and post content. This is text and HTML only; no graphical editing. For that, click “Write” like before. This just makes it easy to make quick updates. Posts get posted to the default category; if you don’t like that you can click “Save as draft,” then click the title in the drafts list and set the category from that page, the regular edit screen.

The box will appear for any blog you’re an author for, only while you’re logged in, below the header but above the content. Enjoy!

This is for both Thripp.com and DaytonaState.org users, because the sites are integrated.

I’m delighted to announce the addition of DaytonaState.org as the complement to Thripp.com! Thripp.com will now be called the Thripp.com network wherever possible, which is inclusive of the new site.

I’d been blogging at Daytona State College News (DaytonaState.org) for a while about the school, but now you can actually blog over there just like Thripp.com; you can be You.DaytonaState.org. Sign up here: daytonastate.org/wp-signup.php.

DaytonaState.org is the only online community dedicated to Daytona State College. If you’re a student, faculty member, or just love the college, join today! Your account is for life. I’ll be reading everything posted just like I do at Thripp.com, and commenting on what I find interesting. You can too if you watch the latest posts list.

This is totally linked to Thripp.com; you’ll appear in the directory, latest posts, etc., your account is for both sites, and both sites share the same code, theme, and database (with some conditional code to distinguish them).

Feel free to start a blog at DaytonaState.org, Thripp.com, or both! I suggest you keep them under one username. You can have as many blogs as you want, in case you didn’t know. You can click “Join the fun: create a blog!” in the footer when you’re logged in to add another.

One important note: you have the same username and password at Thripp.com AND DaytonaState.org, but the sites don’t share cookies. So you have to log in at both. If you’re on your home computer, check “remember me” at each site when logging in and you won’t have to deal with it again.

Yes, you read right! I just added this feature, and redesigned the footers to use the same color schemes as the headers. To add text or HTML to your header, follow these steps:

1. Log in to your Thripp.com account.
2. From your blog, click Design > Widgets in the toolbar above the header.
3. Click the drop-down box that defaults to “1: Sidebar.” Select “2: Header,” then click Show.
4. Look for the widget “Text: Arbitrary text or HTML” in the list on the left. Click Add.
5. In the blue box that appears on the right, click “Edit” and then type whatever text or HTML you want.

For your footer, do the same except select “3: Footer” in step 3. You can also add text to your sidebar (this has been available since the beginning) by skipping step 3.

The text or HTML you enter will appear below your blog’s title in the header, or for the footer, below the normal footer text. You can use links and HTML and images too. If you don’t know HTML, links look like this:

<a href=”http://thripp.com/”>Click here to go to Thripp.com</a>

Images look like this:

<img src=”http://thripp.com/someimage.jpg” alt=”Thripp.com” />

And image links are this:

<a href=”http://thripp.com/”><img src=”http://thripp.com/someimage.jpg” alt=”Thripp.com” /></a>

I used Thripp.com for this example, but you can replace the link in the a href tag and the image in the img src tag with whatever you’d like.

You can also add any of the sidebar widgets to your header or footer, but that’s an unsupported feature. It won’t look good because the widgets are designed for the narrow width of the sidebar.

Check out an example of the header text at Daytona State College News. I also have a notice on this development blog for now.

This is a feature I’ve been using on Brilliant Photography for a while, but I wanted to make it available to the community. Unfortunately I can’t let you replace your blog’s name with a banner like I do, but you can add a banner below with HTML in the text widget. Enjoy!