Previous research has shown a relationship between use of social networking sites and feelings of social capital. However, most studies have relied on self-reports by college students. The goals of the current study are to (1) validate the common self-report scale using empirical data from Facebook, (2) test whether previous findings generalize to older and international populations, and (3) delve into the specific activities linked to feelings of social capital and loneliness. In particular, we investigate the role of directed interaction between pairs—such as wall posts, comments, and “likes”— and consumption of friends’ content, including status updates, photos, and friends’ conversations with other friends. We find that directed communication is associated with greater feelings of bonding social capital and lower loneliness, but has only a modest relationship with bridging social capital, which is primarily related to overall friend network size. Surprisingly, users who consume greater levels of content report reduced bridging and bonding social capital and increased loneliness. Implications for designs to support well-being are discuss
cameronmarlow.com

(PDF) Social network activity and social well-being

TwentyTen BuddyPress (Download) This is a theme that extends the default WordPress 3.0 TwentyTen theme to support BuddyPress. A great place to start in enhancing a blog with social networking features. Author: Ron & Andrea

BuddyPress Columns (Download) A three-column fixed-width variation to the default BuddyPress theme. There are many smaller details that make this theme feel almost finished, but still a bit of room to work with. Author: modemlooper

Fishbook (Download) A clean monotone light-blue two-column flexible-width theme. It remains consistent with default theme’s functionality. Author: Michael Kuhlmann

Jukt Micronics (Download) A minimal light two-column fixed-width theme. This one is one of my favorites, it feels open, good use of highlighting colors, and feels direct and to the point. Author: Michael Kuhlmann

Sense and Sensibility (Download) A stripped down minimal two-column theme. It diverges by not showing the activity in the main menu, which is good to see some variation in navigation. The theme looks like an ideal starting point for a heavy customized theme as there really isn’t much styling added to it yet. It also includes the WordPress meta in the sidebar with a link to access the site admin. Author: Ron & Andrea

More Information at VideoPress.com

More information at BuddyPress.org

BUDDYPRESS WORDPRESS PLUGIN

BuddyPress will let users register on your site and create a profile, post messages, make connections, create and interact in groups and more. There are several ways of extending BuddyPress with extensions.

A WordPress site using BuddyPress.
Ride Oregon is the official site for Travel Oregon’s focus on cycling-related travel and tourism in the state.
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Extend

BuddyPress Events Calendar The plugin will add an option to the user menu called Events. From this menu users can create events and invite friends to join. The plugin will add an Events option to the main menu system for the events directory view. Add the Events widget to list; upcoming, newest, active and popular events on your front page. Total Downloads: 12,961 Author: erwingerrits

Ride Oregan Events Calendar

BuddyPress Ajax-Chat This plugin will extend BuddyPress to have an Ajax Chat client that works with BuddyPress groups, as well as all WordPress users. Total Downloads: 12,860 Author: David Aubin

BuddyPress Like Adds a ‘Like’ button to activities in the stream, allowing users to ‘Like’ the item and see who else has done the same. Total Downloads: 5,523 Author: Alex Hempton-Smith

BuddyPress Maps A component to find and display location markers on a Google Map. Total Downloads: 3,269 Author: G.Breant

Ride Oregan Maps

BuddyPress Friends Online (FOL) Plugin will display on your Friends page in a widget under the search field, currently online friends. Data is dynamically updated. Total Downloads: 1,525 Author: slaFFik

BuddyPress My Friends Widgets Includes two widgets to display a logged in user’s friends. The small size shows 40px by 40px avatars and the big size shows 82px by 82px avatars. Total Downloads: 1,215 Author: Sarah Gooding

BuddyPress Followers Add the ability for users to follow others and keep track of their site activity. This plugin works exactly the same way that the friends component of BuddyPress works, however the connection does not need to be accepted by the person being followed. Total Downloads: 1,117 Author: Andy Peatling

BuddyPress Private Messages for Friends Only By default any member on your BuddyPress site can send messages to anyone in your userbase. This plugin adds the ability to send messages to friends and site administrators. Total Downloads: 983 Author: r-a-y

BuddyPress Private Messages for Followers Only This plugin adds the ability for members to send messages to their followers. Total Downloads: 208 Author: r-a-y

WordPress Interaction Plugins

Private WordPress With this plugin, you may close down your blog, restrict people who can view your blog, or even open feed readers’ access only. Total Downloads: 7,316 Author: Jiehan Zheng

Friendz If you run a site with WordPress, probably some users are authors, some are contributors, and most of them are only subscribers. With Friendz each user has his own profile, even if there are no public posts by that user. Total Downloads: 645 Author: Roger Stringer

Private Network Allows Administrators at different WordPress installations, for example alice.com and bob.com, to share their posts within categories, posts with selected tags or single posts and pages. Within categories and tags is possible to share only private or include public posts. Total Downloads: 298 Author: Andrea Belvedere

WordPress Private Network Contacts Admin

Outgoing Comments (Tracker) Display your recent outgoing comments on your dashboard menu to help you revisit your friends’ sites. The main purpose is to trackback your own comments so you can know what sites you have comments on (with BackType service). Total Downloads: 238 Author: Julian Widya Perdana

WPfriends Simple plugin to keep track of your friends posts, similar to the friends page of LiveJournal. Currently you can just add WordPress and LiveJournal feeds. Total Downloads: 148 Author: Sascha Bias Status: Development

Social Networks Interaction

Wordbook This plugin allows you to cross-post your blog posts to your Facebook Wall. Your Facebook ‘Boxes’ tab will show your most recent blog posts. Total Downloads: 111,625 Author: Robert Tsai

WordPress post cross-posted to Facebook

WP-FacebookConnect Adds Facebook functionality to WordPress using the Facebook Connect APIs. Features include; single sign-on with your Facebook account, publish comments to the news feed, comment avatars display Facebook profile photos. Total Downloads: 43,398 Author: Adam Hupp

Meet Your Commenters When someone comments on your blog and writes a comment with his/her URL, is leaving more information than you think. This plugin displays web pages and profiles of those users in the dashboard, so you can add them as friends if you are in the same social network. Total Downloads: 6,194 Author: Alberto Varela

FriendConnect Login Google Friend Connect (GFC) adds the ability to become members of your site community using their Google, Yahoo!, AIM or OpenID accounts. This lets them interact with other visitors by making friends, sharing media, posting comments, playing games, and more. More information on Google Friend Connect. Total Downloads: 3,269 Author: Shahin Musayev

Add Post To Facebook This plugin will add a link or an image below your posts, allowing your visitors to share your posts with their friends on FaceBook. While the plugin is activated a link will appear after the content of the post with the text ‘Share on Facebook’ or the Facebook icon or both. Clicking this link will bring the user to the Facebook site. If the user isn’t logged in they will be prompted to do so. Once logged into Facebook the post will be added to the Mini-Feed of the account. Total Downloads: 972 Author: Pedro Maia

Friend Connect Commenting Plugin Visitors can log-in with their FriendConnect ID and leave a comment with that same ID or override WordPress comments system and replace it with GFC comments. Also you can add GFC gadgets as sidebar widgets. Total Downloads: 546 Author: Mauro Gonzalez