There are a couple of really thought-provoking themes floating around at the moment that have just taken me down a train of thought I want to reflect on.
In a post today (“Cloning the UMW Blogs Empire“), Jim Groom discusses how he set up a WPMU installation for Longwood University by cloning their existing UMW blog framework and transplanting it to a new domain. It’s a phenomenal example of reuse and sharing, and how quickly innovation can occur at a local level once the barriers of perception are cast off …

In WordPress-related development news, mock-ups were release Thursday of BuddyPress, which is an impressive theme for WordPress Multi-User (WPMU) installations that adds a social networking layer to the existing functionality. This includes groups, direct messaging, friends, photo albums and of course a blogging component.
As the BuddyPress website explains:

“The idea of BuddyPress is to take a standard vanilla installation of WordPress MU and turn it into something that represents more of a community building tool, or niche social network.“

According to BuddyPress developer, Andy Peatling (“New BuddyPress Theme“):
“The theme has been …