It’s been a while since we published any new posts, but have been staying active on Twitter, so for those still using RSS or email subscriptions, or for anyone visiting our site by chance, we wanted to give you an update on where we are and what is coming…

As you may or may not know, ThePremiumPress is a brand that is managed by NI-Limits, a legal business entity based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. NI-Limits has needed to continue focusing on client projects in order to best support ThePremiumPress brand, as such, the majority of our resources have not been available for ThePremiumPress.

At the moment, all of ThePremiumPress development is being singularly focused on the next version of gMaps. But this is not just another minor version of gMaps, this is drastic stuff, and will result in the release of gMaps 2.0, which is in the process of becoming a full-fledged geo-tagging theme framework that utilizes parent and child themes to separate functionality and style.

This new version is fully 3.0 compatible and will support the latest versions of BuddyPress too. With the introduction of it becoming a theme framework, all of the heavy geo-tagging functionality will be placed in the parent theme, which out-of-the-box features 3 types of user interface (sidebar, dialog window and map only) and 4 different theme styles (blue, orange, dark and gray) – it also supports custom styles and has a user-friendly way of managing and storing styles, which once set up, can then be used on any child theme too, and it’s with the child themes where anything is now possible. The child theme we will be including will be a regular blog based theme (as opposed to a full screen map view), and although we could spend hours talking about the new features and functions of the up-coming framework, we’d much rather get on with it…

We will however be posting a teaser soon!

On an unfortunate note, the project that has suffered the most from our set-backs has been RadioPress. Officially, this project is now 75% complete, but at present, all resources for ThePremiumPress are focused entirely on gMaps 2.0 and active support subscriptions, and will be so until October, at which point we will immediately continue developing RadioPress.

We appreciate all of the positive feedback and support we have been getting from both our paying subscribers and interested fans. It is a pleasure supporting you and are looking forward to the future of gMaps, one that you have helped pave the way towards, and one that we look forward to continuing to support. We know that with the new up-coming framework, there are going to be a lot of developers out there looking for quality commercial support, and know that are the ones that can provide it.

This has been and always will remain our strategy. We are not interested in releasing as many themes or plugins as we can. We are interested in releasing several niche ones that do what they do in the best way imaginable, and continue to support and improve those few and the many people that rely upon them for both personal and commercial projects.

BuddyCommerce is coming along a little quicker than RadioPress as it is something we are experimenting with through NI-Limits projects, as are several other projects such as YourURLs, the TPPO Framework and a few other little tidbits we need to keep under wraps for now. In short, things are going well, but not as well as we would like, yet we’re nonetheless more excited than ever to see what our futures will bring and sincerely hope that those futures continue to involve you all.

Following on from the success of WordCamp Malaysia and our promotion with the badges, we’d first like to thank everyone for participating in the event and unlocking the special badges we prepared for the event – we hope you’ll treasure them forever. We would also like to take this opportunity to officially re-announce the winners from the day:

• 1st Place – VIP Subscription (worth US$ 399)- Lucas Lau ( @luc_sohow )
• 2nd Place – gMaps Premium Subscription (worth US$ 249) – Nicky Woo ( @nickywoo )
• 3rd Place – gMaps Basic Subscription (worth US$ 149) – Lien Yu ( @joshuatly )

( Featured from left to right are Jimmy Ngu, Nicky Woo, Lucas Lau and Mark Smalley )

( Featured from left to right are Lien Yu and Mark Smalley )

We’ve contacted the winners directly though Twitter, but for anyone else who was at the event and found the promotional code, you can use that code when signing-up for one of our paid subscription plans and we will automatically give you two year’s worth of subscription for the price of one!

We hope to see you all next year and also hope we can surpass your expectations in the meantime.

Thanks again! – ThePremiumTeam

Of course, as far as master plans are concerned, this is still only phase 2. Phase 1 was to launch our initial website and generate a bit of buzz. Phase 2, which we’ve just completed was to integrate e-Commerce and BuddyPress groups, so we could serve the subscriptions. For those interested in what’s next, phase 3 involves the launch of our 2nd (and maybe 3rd) product, along with working affiliate partnership plans, which we presently have scheduled for completion by the 1st of May, 2010.

We’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their generous and sincere support these last few months as we’ve been putting everything together and hope we have not made too many people restless. It’s been truly amazing to see how much interest there has been in our products and are proud to finally be able to properly showcase them to the world in the hope that you will all do some truly creative things with them.

As well as preparing for phase 3, we are also already busy working on the next version of gMaps, which will be drastically consolidated, fully WP 3.0 and BP 1.3+ compatible, as well as featuring some really cool geo-tagging photo features and special capabilities for custom post types.

Our full scope of plans for gMaps is huge. We have a tremendous amount we can do with the framework and can guarantee that anyone kind enough to subscribe to the product will not be disappointed with the impressive things we have cooking here at ThePremiumPress geo-engineering lab.

To view the gMaps product page please, please visit:
http://thepremiumpress.com/products/gmaps/

Please read the following article for more information on our Subscription-Based Business Model.

To learn more about the event as a whole, and how we used pin-badges to promote our products, please visit our corporate blog and read the article ThePremiumPress, Badges and WordCamp Malaysia 2010.

Furthermore, as Terminal Junkie pointed-out:

This is the very first Wordcamp event to be held in Malaysia and I must commend the effectiveness of the organisers from start to finish. The whole event was on time and on schedule, something you don’t always see in a Malaysian’s event as they are infamous for their tardiness.

Let’s just say our expectations were by far surpassed and could not be happier for having helped-out by both sponsoring the event and giving a very brief presentation on Geo-Tagging with BuddyPress at WordCamp Malaysia 2010. In the spirit of OpenSource and sharing with the community, we wanted to provide as much reference as we could, so to start with, we’ve embedded our presentation (and will also include our presentation notes below it).

Introduction

Good morning everyone – I would first like to thank the organizing committee for the opportunity to participate in the first ever WordCamp Malaysia.

My name is Jimmy and I work with NI-Limits Sdn Bhd, the company behind ThePremiumPress, who are one of the sponsors here today. When my colleague Mark and I met with Simon for the first time over a month ago and started talking about our participation with the event, we were so excited and eager to learn what would be in store for the first WordCamp Malaysia. We listened very carefully, waiting patiently for a phrase that starts with a capital ‘B’, but sadly it never came!

When we realized that nobody was going to talk about BuddyPress, which for us at NI-Limits – is worse than the end of civilization as we know it, we also knew that we would have to do something about it.

We wanted so much for the WordPress community here in Malaysia to share our passion and enthusiasm about this awesome new Press extension. The platform that we, as a company who focuses and specializes in Press development, has learned to love and embrace for the past year.

So rather than sponsor a ten minute product pitch, we thought we’d mix subjects by merging BuddyPress, geo-tagging with WordPress and our crown-jewel, gMaps into a single presentation.

It’s somewhat technical and theoretical in places, and it assumes you already understand the basics behind BuddyPress and its role as a social-layer for WordPress – as the key focus for this presentation is on re-defining that social-layer…

BuddyPress as a Social-Layer for WordPress

So what is BuddyPress…?

BuddyPress was started as a pet project by Andy Peatling, a British chap like perhaps many of you here today, got involved with WordPress whilst freelancing.

Around March of 2008, both Andy and BuddyPress were acquired by Automattic, officially parking the project under the growing strength of the WordPress umbrella and providing it with the support and resources it needed to flourish.

Not just another plugin!

In a normal WordPress environment, whether for single-site or multi-site, the only interactions with the audiences are limited to posts, pages, comments and occasionally trackbacks.

Although this environment could in some ways be made more social with ad-hoc plugins that adds certain functions or features, there was no underlying platform or core system that brings everything together.

In this time where social-networking changes the way we live, work and play; there is a lack of a robust and highly customizable social-networking platforms.

NOT UNTIL BUDDYPRESS CAME ALONG!

In a nutshell, BuddyPress is an extension for WordPress that adds a social-networking layer on top of any existing WordPress powered sites, and as Michael Pratt recently pointed out in a presentation he made – although BuddyPress is officially a plugin, it’s not just another plugin – that’s for sure!

It basically takes all the goodies that you’ll experience from other social-network sites and packages it together so it can be easily download and installed, directly from WordPress at the click of a button.

Here’s a list of things that comes bundled with BuddyPress installs:

• Activity Streams
• Extended Profiles
• Groups
• Friends
• Messaging
• Forums

So seriously, if you haven’t already taken BuddyPress for a spin, you need to download it and test it out.

A little bit of recent news

In 2009, we’ve seen very exciting transformations and maturing of BuddyPress from its initial release of 1.0 until the latest release 1.2.

I’ve been working with BuddyPress in production environments since version 1.0, and believe me it was HARD. I often find myself spending weeks looking for workarounds and writing functions to override the problems found in the core scripts (occupational hazard in working with bleeding edge technologies I guess). I think I had my fair share of hair-pulling when it comes to forum integration and custom themes (without using the default layout).

However, when BuddyPress released 1.2, it was a huge improvement on the stability and the ease of customization. Creating customized themes has become extremely streamlined, and activating fully integrated forums is as simple as a single click of a button.

Currently we are all waiting anxiously for the 1.3 release, with its full support on WP3.0.

Why another social-networking platform…?

When we first heard about BuddyPress, we were wondering ourselves – why not just use Facebook?

We can always create a Facebook Fan Page and pull some news streams into the community website, or simply set-up a Twitter account and rely on that for branded conversations or social-support channels.

Here are just some of the reasons why we think BuddyPress has or will help to revolutionize the way we think about Social Networking Platforms & Services:

• Safeguard Sensitive & Proprietary Information

  Facebook’s biggest threat this year and hottest debated topic at the moment is privacy – basically the lack of it. You mix that and the Ning catastrophe, then owning and (or) at least controlling your own information suddenly becomes very appealing – something that is especially true in this growing social-world of connectivity and sharing. Because we need to ask ourselves, “do we really want other people to have complete control over our proprietary or sometimes sensitive information?”

• Re-Defining The Social-Layer

  Let’s first talk about niche communities.

  As powerful as a social-networking service (for example Facebook) can be, there’s always the limitation of how customizable the service is. The end result is that we focus more on how to make our services work on other people’s platform, rather than focusing on what works best for that particular community.

  With BuddyPress, you can create your very own, unique social-networking service over niche groups, tailored to the needs of each individual community.

  We’ve introduced BuddyPress as a social-layer for WordPress, but its true power comes from its ability to be redefined and used in new and creative ways.

  For example, using BuddyPress Extend Profiles, you can build groups of information to associate with users or members from a series of pre-defined fields – all of which can then be easily customized and used to develop your own unique sets of information.

  Another example will be using the .pot translations as a customization tool to re-label into community specific terms.

  By redefining this social-layer, through re-labeling things, styling the theme and setting up the correct profile fields; we can turn BuddyPress into a CRM, a Project Management Platform, an Auction Site, Corporate Intranet or even a Social-Media management system.

  So let’s use the transformation of BuddyPress into Foursquare as a theoretical example:

  • Add a “My Location” field to the extended profiles
  • Change the slugs (in bp-custom.php) for “members” into “travelers”
  • Change the slugs (in bp-custom.php) for “groups” into “venues”
  • Change WP permalink structure to /checkins/%postname%/
  • Use .pot functionality to replace “groups” with “venues”
  • Add geoRSS functionality to functions.php
  • Add a “Venue Location” field to new venues through BP hooks
  • Install Automattic’s geolocation plugin

  You’ve just built your own Foursquare, where posts are check-ins and new groups are classified as venues, where richer social-experiences can occur through threaded messaging and integrated forums – and that’s just for starters with a few simple steps…

• Easily Extensible

  BuddyPress is backed-up by Automattic and is just as extensible and easy to customize as WordPress. This allows us to easily redefine things by incorporating existing plugins such as:

  • BP Album – mimicking Facebook’s photo app on your own site:
    http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/bp-album/
  • Facestream & Tweetstream – Providing synchronization with Facebook, Twitter and BuddyPress:
    http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/facestream/ and
    http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/tweetstream/
  • Geolocation – Geo-tag posts from website or mobile devices:
    http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/geolocation/
  • Achievements – Reward users for contributions:
    http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/achievements/ and
    http://buddypress.org/community/groups/achievements/

For more information regarding gMaps, please visit any of the following:

LIVE DEMO | PRODUCT PAGE | GROUP PAGE

We’d also like to thank Simon Lim (@simonlim88) and the rest of the WordCamp Malaysia (@wordcampmy) team for helping us help others within the WordPress community.

Jimmy Ngu is also making a presentation on “Geo-Tagging with BuddyPress“, which we are excited to be giving. Originally planned as a ten minute introduction to gMaps at the beginning of the day, we soon learned that there was no one here to give any form of introduction or recognition to BuddyPress, so we were asked to talk about that too!

As a result, we decided it best to combine the topics into a single talk – where we will first introduce BuddyPress and several useful things that can be done with it and how simple it is to do those things, before we then move-on to the subject of geo-tagging and how easy it is to do so with gMaps. This brings us to our next announcement, and that in consideration of the event and our chosen theme for geo-tagging, we wanted to do something extra special, and incorporate Foursquare, which is a perfect companion for gMaps as well as a hot and growing trend here in Malaysia that we hope to better promote at and during the event.

More information on the Foursquare Integration Features will become available closer to the event.

For those of you in and around Asia during the 22nd of May, we really do recommend you come take a visit and be part of the very first WordCamp in Malaysia…

For more information regarding gMaps, please visit any of the following:

LIVE DEMO | PRODUCT PAGE | GROUP PAGE

However, we’ve hit a couple of glitches that have gone and caused ourselves some unexpected delays. This has in-turn pushed back our official launch.

After gMaps came out of beta, we were able to compile a release candidate that went onto several live demo sites that we will soon be releasing to the public. It came to our attention that there were a few problems with the WPMU version, and although we know that WPMU will soon be a thing of the past, our plan is to first release the WordPress & WordPress MU 2.9.2 and BuddyPress 1.1.3 compatible version of gMaps for those already using those platforms in production environments. These final few problems are now being fixed, but before we make our public release, we want to be completely satisfied that everything will work perfectly out of the box.

This brings us to our e-Commerce and support channels for ThePremiumPress (Trac, SVN, forum, documentation, etc), which we had planned to have already launched by now, but in reality, we are still testing and compiling. Again, we really do not want to rush things for the sake of it and then run into problems later, so have done some talking amongst ourselves and come to the conclusion that we will need approximately one more month of development time spent by our team on both platforms to ensure that everything is running smoothly.

Unfortunately, we cannot release gMaps or any of our other products until these two platforms are thoroughly tested and all working perfectly – as the proper support for Premium members means everything to us, so to launch without this at the levels we envision is simply not good enough.

Again, we apologize for having gotten everyone’s hopes up for an end of March launch, and really do feel terrible about not making it in time, but are confident that the additional time spent to ensure that everything is functioning perfectly will be much better for everyone in the long run.

If anyone has any further questions or requires more specific information about anything we’re working on, or have mentioned above; please, as always, drop us a line.

We’ve been working really hard behind the scenes getting the latest version of gMaps ready, which is now BuddyPress compatible and has more options than you could wave a stick at, not to mention making the finishing touches to RadioPress; an audio-broadcasting system that will leave you speechless.

We’d like to thank everyone for their tremendous support with WPMU Premium and hope to continue our relationship with you through this new venture that we are very proud to finally present.

For now, we’re calling this our un-official soft-launch, not only because we have yet to start any form of marketing, which in our eyes makes it un-official, but it’s also a soft-launch, as this is only the first phase of development for ThePremiumPress. We are not only working behind the scenes on a whole host of premium themes and plugins, but are also continuing to develop this site, where we will soon be integrating e-Commerce and VIP membership, which will later provide different levels of privileges to those that subscribe to our various degrees of serviced support.

Our aim is to have the e-Commerce integrated by the end of May, at which point, we will begin our marketing plans and release gMaps and RadioPress, the first of our premium products.

If in the meantime, you have any questions, please do not hesitate to get in contact with us…

Everything gMaps is able to do is built directly into the theme and does not require any third-party plugins or applications of any kind. Running on either Google Maps API 2 or 3 (by default), it will work out-of-the-box and only needs relevant coordinates in order to start displaying information for the individual components, such as posts, pages, comments, users, blogs, groups, topics, forum posts, profile wires and group wires. Every time you create a new entry or edit an existing entry for any of the aforementioned components, you are presented with an easy-to-use geo-location form that allows you to search for a general location, where you can then drag a marker to the exact place and use the generated coordinates for tagging the entry.

The main features of gMaps include:

• WordPress, WordPress MU and BuddyPress Compatible with Auto-Configuration for Either Platform
• Google Maps API 2 and API 3 Compatible (with default as API 3, which does not require an API Key)
• Widgetised Facebook Style Footer (Widget Titles as Links with Widget Content Rising from Footer)
• Configurable Animation Settings (None, Slow, Normal and Fast) for Widgets and Sidebars
• Post, Page, Comment, User, Blog, Group, Topic, bbPost, and Profile and Group Wire Markers
• 2 Map Marker Styles (Flags and Plates) for each User and Blog to Choose From
• Live Filtered Map Markers relevant to Markers Displayed for Each Individual Page
• Configurable Sliding Sidebar for Main Content (such as Comment Forms and BuddyPress Pages)
• Archives and Searches Provide Relevant Markers as Per Category or Search Term
• Full geoRSS Functionality Inserted into Main Feed, Comment Feed and BP Activity Feeds

Other features include:

• Independent Map Options for Every Page include Map Type, Zoom Level and Location
• Friendly Forms for Every Geo-Component with Search Box and Drag and Dropped Coordinate Picking
• Ability to Select Pagination Levels for Every Pagination BP Component from Theme Options
• Ability to Display Sitewide Posts, Pages and Comment Markers on Homepage
• Ability to Add Advertisements to Maps (468 X 60 or 200 X 200)
• Choice of Header Styles (Renaming BP Terms, Auto-Adjusting Menu Widths and Including Categories)
• Options for Copyright Text and Dates
• Ability to Add Tracking Code
• Theme Options Utilize ThePremiumPanel Theme Option Framework
• Page Templates for Non-Mapped Pages
• Page Templates for Adding External geoRSS Markers
• Options for Initial Pop-Up Splash Screen
• Ability to Cluster Markers
• Choice of Styles for Theme

For more information regarding gMaps, please visit any of the following:

LIVE DEMO | PRODUCT PAGE | GROUP PAGE

Upload multiple files from the administrator interface, or simply dump folders full of audio files via FTP and RadioPress will scan the files for ID3 tags and associate the relevant, song, artist, album and genre information to the file. Alternatively, you can edit the tags associated with each file directly from the administrator interface – including the album or individual file’s artwork.

Create an unlimited number of folders for storing songs, sound effects or anything else required to help organize your library, then build playlists by dragging and dropping tunes like you would with iTunes that help to categorize and segment your files. Develop rules for intervals that control dead-air time, and use combinations of songs, playlists and intervals to develop your own shows, that can then be scheduled to play at certain times of the day with unprecedented control of recurrence. You can set-up an entire year’s worth of online audio-broadcasting, which visitors to your website can listen to from the advanced integrated media-player that’s included with RadioPress.

For multi-user sites, there are advanced administrative options for super-admins that allow you to determine what other administrators are able to do, and playlists, intervals and shows can be shared amongst the community, which brings us to BuddyPress; where the community can vote for their favorite station, songs or shows, upload recommendations and interact with the virtual DJs through the station’s wall, with new scheduled shows added to the sitewide stream and a whole host more.

The advanced integrated media-player has a number of options, the most fascinating of which is the framed-player, which allows the media-player to be located in the header and display your site in a frame below it, meaning that as people move around the site and visit new pages, the music continues to play. With RadioPress, audio enthusiasts can create their very own online radio stations, advanced podcasting portals and anything else that can be imagined and involves scheduled audio playback.

The main features include:

• WordPress, WordPress MU and BuddyPress Compatible
• Upload Audio from RadioPress Interface or via FTP
• Auto-Detection of Existing ID3 Tags
• Inline Editing of Tags and Artwork
• Drag and Drop Re-Ordering
• Library Management
• Playlist Management
• Interval Management
• Show Management
• Advanced Scheduling
• Shared Playlists, Intervals and Shows
• Advanced Search & Filtering of Audio Library
• Advanced Widgetised Front-End Media-Players

To get an idea of what to expect, please stay tuned for up-coming screen-casts…