Giving Blogs with WPMU

This is part of a larger, ongoing series which examines how – in 2005 / 2006 – you can give people blogs. Visit the contents page to see the lot (or suggest more content!) or grab the feed to keep up with new stuff!

Alright, hands up first off because while WPMU is the last multi-blogging tool I’m reviewing, it was also the first one on the list as it’s the tool that I use for projects such as edublogs and prblogs. Still, this doesn’t make it necessarily the *best* multi blogging solution out there… just the one that happened to cross my radar when I was (a.) using WordPress and which (b.) had a simple ‘create your blog’ page.

In terms of the journey WPMU has been down, it’s been a long and interesting one. Starting off as a hack of b2 (now known as b2evolution) called b2++ by Donncha O’Caoimh it’s gone through a range of different forms to find it in it’s current state where it provides the base for wordpress.com and many more WPMU-based sites (check out the list down the sidebar).

Essentially WPMU provides each user with a version of WordPress with all it’s world-leading functionality. This includes simple uploading of images and image management, detailed user management (although ‘add user’ – outside of existing users on that system – has been deliberately turned off), uses of ‘pages’ as well as ‘posts’, multiple effective plugins and a range of possible themes. As a blogging engine it’s unsurpassed. If you’re an education professional then get yourself an edublogs.org site, if not try one of the ones listed through the link above (I’m a particular fan of BeBlogging.com and wugga.com)

However, there are drawbacks. The software itself has still to be given an ‘alpha’ release, yet alone a ‘beta’ and if you’re uncomfortable with finding out things for yourself or using the excellent forums then you could struggle without a good grasp of php (I don’t have a good grasp, I know you’ll struggle!). Perhaps of more concern though is the lack of ‘independence’ that the blogs have in terms of templates and plugins. For example, it is currently impossible (beyond designing and having uploaded your own individual template) to edit a template to your choosing and if you want a particular plugin, then you’ve just got to persuade the admin to make it available site-wide.

Indeed, it could be argued, that if WordPress can live up to it’s promise as being *the* excellent independent blogging tool, then as long as WPMU only allows a limited amount of independence to each blogger… this opens up the field for whoever effectively can. As long as blogs are going to be the jumping off point for digital identity, independence of design is going to be critical beyond simply choosing one of 50, 100 or 500 themes. Donncha knew this in developing earlier versions of WPMU (which used smarty templates) but whether this kind of flexibility will be afforded to the current system is unclear as yet.

Having said all of this though, for sheer functionality, potential and application, at this moment it feels a bit like WPMU has the world before it. The potential for applications of tools like global categories, community management features and API use are huge. But time will tell how many steps it takes.