May 18, 2012. The Facebook Social Network is open for public trade starting at $38 per shares. The CEO Mark Zuckerberg become one of the young billionaire, and his company worth $100+ billion as of writing this article.

You're now thinking of creating your own next facebook social network. Well, you're in the right website. Here are the steps on how you can start your own social network. This is the official guide I've used to start Friended.com Social Network, maybe one day it will be one of the top social network out there. That's a possibility because  Friended.com Social Network  is powered by open source programs e.g. WordPress, BuddyPress, and BBPress, it is stable, secure and your privacy is protected! I didn't say that your Facebook privacy is not protected, it is now public (hypothetically speaking).

Let's go dig deep!

Assuming you have a web hosting service already in place, and WordPress CMS/Blog is already pre-installed. Then you have to add the following plug-ins and activate them. You need to tweak the plugin settings, not too much of work to accomplish.

Through your WordPress control panel, add the following plugins and activate.

BuddyPress, if you are installing multi-site BuddyPress you also need to activate BP Multi Network.
Activating BuddyPress is easy, follow five default settings, save it. If your .htaccess file is not writable (chmod 644), you need to copy and paste the small code provided to your during the install to complete the install of BuddyPress.

bbPress for the forum, activate and configure settings

Go to Settings/General to update basic information about your social network.
Go to Settings/Writing, in Front page displays, select A Static page, in Front page select Activity. Save changes.
Go to Settings/Discussion, make sure that you put check on "Users must be registered and logged in to comment". Save changes.
Other settings should be fine to start your own social network.

CubePoints for giving incentives to your social network members. This is optional but I recommend. Go to CubePoints, Configure to change your points. I suggest start using default setting, you can come back here to make an adjustment.
Go to CubePoints, Modules, and activate the modules you want included to your social network e.g. Comment Spam Control, Custom Points, Daily Points, Donate points, etc. After you activated the modules, you need to re-visit Configure to verify your settings. Again default setting should be OK to start.

CubePoints BuddyPress Integration, activate manually?

BuddyPress Activity Plus, where user can upload photo, youtube, and links.
BuddyPress Activity Stream Hashtags, hash tags is well known in Twitter world


To make your social network closely similar to Facebook and Twitter. Yes, we can hit two birds (Facebook and Twitter) in one stone. Install the following plugins.

BP Disable Activation, where user can join right away.
BuddyPress Share It, a simple button to share using other social media e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, or using email.
BuddyPress Album, for photo album

BuddyPress Follow, to follow and unfollow other members
BuddyPress Mobile, so you can use your smart phones to browse your social network.
BuddyPress Verified

Easy Privacy Policy, for a simple privacy policy for your social network.

After tweaking the settings, I have build my own Friended.com Social Network, come see for yourself, and join us for a test run. Please don't hesitate to follow me @Friended.

Thank you.

The most anticipated social network goes public today at starting $38 per share. I don't know about you but I heard a positive vibes (and negative) from investors, today is the time to tell how much it will cost to sell your information publicly (hypothetically speaking).
The users helped this company to be one of the highest IPO in technology, and it will continue to grow as long as the users will use this service.

Your privacy is now public!

Just a thought!

Someone asked me about Game Development Tools, here are some software's that you can try, and most of them are free to download.

• Blender.org open source 3d creation suites available for windows or mac operating system.
• Gimp.org (good for graphics and textures)
• Daz3d.com free 3d Art software for a limited time.
• RakNet (http://www.jenkinssoftware.com) open source, C++ networking engine for game programmer.

And NOT really free:

1. GameSalad.com
2. CryENGINE (http://mycryengine.com/) maker of Crisis, Warface, Far Cry, etc.
3. Unreal Development Kit (http://udk.com/) used to make Gears of Wars and Infinity Blade

That's for now.
If you have something to share, post it here so I can update the list.

This is a simple procedure on how to configure your WordPress website to allow your members to upload their own avatars.

Assuming you are getting this error "Upload Failed! Error was: Unable to create directory /avatars/3"

Here's how to fix this error:
- Using a FTP program, go to wp-content folder.
- Create a new folder "uploads" and give 777 permission.

/public_html/wp-content (0755 permission)
/public_html/wp-content/uploads (0777 permission)

Try uploading avatar, you will see this error disappear, and you will be able to crop the image.

Hope this help.

We are going to the future with the new Google Project Glass, always on wherever you go check online, capture photo, GPS navigation, read text, read email, schedule a meeting, check the weather, post in your Google+, and more. I think it is better for your to watch the video.



I've noticed, Google is also using their short URL service (g.co\projectglass) to promote this project.

Let's get going.