Megathread’s Plugin For WordPress and BuddyPress Discussions

 

Megathread_adMegathread’s plugin for active WordPress and BuddyPress discussions naturally identifies the most influential tags, people, posts, discussions and communities based on the subjects that are being discussed. Megathread’s Discussion Based Analytics will instantly increase your ability to understand, educate, manage, target, and connect with your audiences across the Web.

Download from the WordPress repository here.

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Local Influence

Megathread provides comprehensive semantic analytics that measure the social influence of key contributing factors that apply to your blog. This includes you and other editors, your commenting members, content, keywords, discussions, and other similar communities to your blog.

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Global Relevance

As more blogs, forums, and discussion platforms join Megathread, you’re blogging community will “see and be seen” by other people, discussions, and communities that are relevant to your blogging communities interests. It’s the easiest way for you, your blog and your members to be recognized over other platforms for the social influence you deserve.



***This plug-in only supports WordPress or BuddyPress comments.***

Megathread’s Core Benefits:

 

  • Targeting: Increase your ability to “see and be seen” across multiple platforms in the subjects of interest that are most relevant and meaningful to your online community.
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  • Awareness: Receive a comprehensive understanding of the most influential and relevant factors that apply to your site, your peers, and like-minded communities.
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  • Credibility: Generate authentic social credentials–for you, your content, and your members–which can be utilized and recognized across the Web.

 

How to Integrate Your WordPress Blog With Megathread

 

See Installation Video: http://screencast.com/t/Tt1ZySAuOnZ
Approximate Installation Time: 5-10 Minutes
Requirements: WordPress/BuddyPress Discussions, SOAP (your server should support this.)

1) First, fill out the registration form at http://app.megathread.com/signup and be sure to register as a “Community”.

2) Confirm your account through the confirmation email we send you. If you do not see this in your Inbox please check your Spam. Once you confirm you will receive a second email that provides essential information for community integration. Be sure to save this second email for future use.

3) Login to your Megathread Community Profile at http://app.megathread.com/signin. Be sure to login as “Community.”

4) Download the Megathread WordPress Plugin (megathread.zip) from the Tool Shed tab in your Megathread Community Profile.

5) In a new browser window open your WordPress Administration Dashboard by adding /wp-admin to your sites URL.

6) In the left side panel select Plugins->Add New

7) Upload the plug-in file megathread.zip which you downloaded (step #4.)

(Another option to step #5 through step #7 is to FTP the contents of the megathread.zip file to your wp-content/plugins directory.)

8) In your Megathread Community Profile/Community Settings enter your Authorization URL (see below.)
(Note: This is the path for the megathread_auth.php file in the plug-in directory you just installed. For WordPress this is going to be: http://[YOUR_SITE_URL]/wp-content/plugin/megathread/megathread_auth.php)

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9) Create a Plugin-API Login and Plugin-API Password (step 8) and be sure to “Update” your changes. These credentials will have to match with your WordPress plug-in settings (step 10.)

10) In your WordPress Dashboard go to Settings/Megathread (see below) and under Megathread Settings paste your Forum ID (copy it from the second email we sent you from step 2) along with the Plugin-API Login and Plugin-API Password you created in your Community Settings (step 9) and be sure to “Save” your changes.

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Synchronization

1) If you have pre-existing/past discussions, select the Synchronize tab and the “Sync” button in order to retro-activate your past discussions.
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2) Check your Interest Manager and Dashboard in your Megathread Community Profile to make sure that Synchronization worked and that you have populated data from past discussions. If it did not work then re-check the steps in the integration process.

 

Community Management

See Community Profile Video: http://screencast.com/t/xrS69qyouCpL

In your Megathread Community Profile/Interest Manager you will see General Interests, Interest Groups, Hidden Interests (not Shown,) and Community Interest Groups.

Interest-Manager

General Interests is a bucket list of all Tags, and their relevance (Value,) that Megathread has generated through your online discussions. You can “Delete” unwanted keywords or “Hide” them for later use.

Interest Groups gives you greater control over your Megathread profile. Top 10 Tags are the default top Interests recognized over your site.

You can also create your own Interest Group by selecting the “Add Interest Group” button. Once you create an Interest Group it will be added to your sidebar and will allow you accurate understanding and control over specific subjects that apply to your community.

 

Megathread Options

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By Default all our widget settings are set to “Off.” Go ahead and set these to “On” if you want Megathread widgets to appear on your site.

 

User Registration

As a blogger you are also a user, so it is essential that bloggers claim their own user profile as soon as they have integrated their blog with Megathread.

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Register can register at http://app.megathread.com/signup and be sure to select “Individual Registration.” By entering the same email that they use to post or blog, Megathread will automatically create a user profile. If a user uses multiple emails over multiple blogs, they can associate those accounts with their Megathread universal profile.

Any member that is not registered with Megathread will be known as Anonymous, until they claim their account through one of our Widgets or through the Megathread home site.

Megathread: An Organic Approach to Socializing the Web

shutterstock_117011386 If knowledge is power then how powerful would it be if the worlds knowledge was available and organized appropriately? If ethically sound, wouldn’t this be the most powerful society tool we could ever ask for?

Think of the infinite potentials if education, research, science, technology, healthcare, business and government all shared the ubiquitous ability to discover the most meaningful, useful, and relevant connections between people and information resources.

What if social organization was based on the ability to identify and match people’s values with others needs and problems with solutions?

At a time when civilization needs greater solutions to our personal, social and environmental challenges, the Web offers a new paradigm in social organization in which we can expect exponential growth in social impact and change. However, if the Web is going to solve the world’s problems through providing the right information to the right people at the right time, it needs an ethical solution to understanding who people truly and what they really seek, without compromising privacy.


The Web 2.0 Problem

The #1 challenge to socializing the Web lies in its decentralized, open-architecture. With so many people relying on the the Internet for just about everything, how can we trust the authenticity and credibility of people and information resources?

The current Web 2.0 is a patchwork of online communities and social technologies that appeal to different interest groups and various aspects of society. Blogs, social networks, search engines and community platforms all improve our ability to connect with people and information in ways that were never possible. Whether it is news, media, education, sports, entertainment, business, enterprises, governments, healthcare, social services, etc., there isn’t a single aspect of society that doesn’t rely on the usefulness of the social Web.

In the background of Web chatter billions of dollars are being spent, and made, on better methods for tracking user behavior, identifying trends, and deriving useful analytics. Every single thing we do online creates data, which for the most part, is openly available. So if you are worried about government institutions like the NSA, think about the hackers, advertisers, marketers, search engines, researchers, etc., that are mining personal and social data to benefit their own interests.

Data privacy isn’t the only Web 2.0 problem; with a growing mass of people and information resources, how can we trust an unregulated system to deliver us the most relevant and useful connections?

While the Web is providing increased social impact and overall good, we have only seen the tip of the Iceberg. The true socially empowering potentials of the Web will come when we have an open-social standard for recognizing the authenticity and credibility of people and information. This will allow the Web to form the most accurate and meaningful connections across any discipline or social media platform.


How to Socialize the Web

Mother Nature is the greatest example we have for socializing an open-architecture. Therefore, Nature is the perfect example for how we should socialize the Web.

Similar to how natural systems maximize efficiency, ensure sustainability, and overcome all adversity, the Internet’s open-architecture provides the perfect environment for optimizing personal, social, and business objectives on a global scale. As a decentralized environment, the open-architecture of the Internet demands a cross-platform solution for recognizing the authenticity and credibility of people and information resources. Through understanding who people truly are and what they really seek, the Internet will provide organic relationships between people and information in any subject of interest. This new paradigm in social integration and organization will naturally match peoples problems with the best solutions on a global scale?

Megathread: An Ethical Approach to Socializing the Web

Megathread is a simple plug-in that leverages online discussions to understand and connect people and information resources across any platform.

Why does Megathread focus on online discussions? Because dialogue is how we get to truly know and trust people in different areas of expertize. Dialogue is how we share, learn and grow our conceptual understanding of everything; it builds an innate sense of authenticity, credibility and meaning through our daily lives; it is the single common denominator to personal development and social-cultural evolution. In essence, online dialogue is the key to building accurate representations of knowledge across the Web.

Since Megathread focuses on online discussions, it offers an ethical and seamless approach to integrating people, online communities, social networks, and social technologies. It can be applied to any community platform where influential or educational dialogue occurs. It provides an authentic and accurate source for integrating the qualities of people and the value of information resources. Additionally, it is benign; it doesn’t compromise data privacy, nor does it change anything about the pre-exiting platform.

Megathread can improve upon what’s already out there while addresses the Web 2.0 problem. Megathread’s ultimate goal is to provide the safest and most meaningful connections between people and information resources in education, research, science, technology, sports and recreation, healthcare, business, government, social services, and so on. How effective Meathread becomes in matching people’s values with others needs and problems with solutions, depends upon the degree of support and collaboration from online communities and their members.

While Megathread is a for-profit company its purpose is collaborative–it will always be free to individuals, supporting communities in education, and non-profit organizations. With the right support form communities, institutions and individuals, Megathread can help organize the worlds knowledge, build the next generation of the Web, and maybe, provide the social condition for overcoming our World’s challenges.

Megathread’s Open Social Credentials: Real World Representations of Knowledge

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How can we value people in a way that drives purpose, meaning and prosperity throughout society?  How can we build a life-long learning environment which credentials knowledge on a global scale? 

The Internet is changing our world at an exponential rate.  Most evidently, this change can be seen and experienced in the growing evolution of the online classroom.  In only a few years the Web has challenged our traditional understanding of education and the belief that we need to physically attend a prestigious school or university in order to receive a higher education.

MOOC’s, or massive open online classrooms, allow hundreds of thousands of students to receive higher education from anywhere in the world, typically for free.  Emerging organizations such as The Open Education Alliance (supported by Udacity, Google, and AT&T) Coursera, edX, The University of the People and others, are improving tools and expanding outreach making modern education more available and useful than ever before.

This is only the tip of the iceberg, for as the exponential growth in online education continues we can anticipate that our planet will become exponentially more educated, and thus, empowered.

“The expansion of education can contribute, under certain conditions, to the aggregate economic well-being of the population” Sociologist, Randal Collins.

The Need for Personalization

While emerging technologies in online education offer novel benefits they come with inherent costs.  Taking a class with a hundred thousand people means students are more than likely going to miss the hands on, personalized attention they deserve in a learning experience.  Besides the challenge of personalizing the online classroom to fit the unique qualities, skills and needs of students, how can education adapt to the accelerating changes in business, science, technology, and the real world?

What is emerging now, beyond formal modes of credentialing such as certificates, transcripts, degrees, etc., are peer-based methods such as¬†Mozilla‚Äôs Open Badges, or to a far lessor extent,¬†LinkedIn Endorsements.¬† ¬†While peer-based methods offers a more open and flexible approach to credentialing, they do not address the challenges, or fully utilize the potentials, of online education over the Web’s open-architecture.

While badges relate to any subject and can be shared openly across the Web, qualification is based on predefined criteria issued and associated to the badge. Subsequently, second-person accounts such as Endorsements, Likes, Recommends, and traditional ratings, reviews, and feedback, are inherently limited because they harbor fraud, maliciousness, misinformation, and biased results.

If MOOC’s are going to be successful, and online education is going to evolve openly across the Internets open-architecture, then we need a real-time, real-world system for credentialing that is open, adaptive, and personalized.

The Future Web

While the current Web 2.0 is comprised of different online communities that represent various aspects of society in education, entertainment, news, sports, business, enterprise, science, technology, government, etc., there is nothing tying it all together. What is limiting the Web from providing the right information to the right people at the right time, is the universal ability to recognize accurate representations of knowledge for people and information resources across different communities and disciplines.

Through cross-platform integration, online communities in education, research, science, technology, business, etc., can all contribute to building an online environment where innovation would thrive, novelty would emerge, and people would be valued for their unique contributions to society.

Through accurate and authentic representations of knowledge, we can anticipate that the next generation Web 3.0 will naturally identify, and match, people’s values with others needs and problems with solutions on a global scale.

Megathread’s Open Social Credentials

It doesn’t matter if you are a blogger, researcher, or a student in an online classroom, any time people share knowledge through information there is some degree of education that is occurring.¬† Within an online classroom or not, the sharing of knowledge through information is fundamental to the learning process and this is where social accreditation should begin to occur.

Applied to blogs, forums, chat, or any form of online discussion, Megathread leverages the Internet’s open-architecture to generate open social credentials–accurate and authentic representations of knowledge that measure the social influence and relevance of people and information resources in any subject of interest. This ubiquitous ability to credential knowledge from a real-time, real world source provides a next generation technology for online education and Web socialization.

Megathread’s open social credentials are inherently empowering because they naturally identify and match the unique qualities and skills of people with the needs of society. In terms of formal education, open social credentials seamlessly integrate students, educators, and curriculum with the real-world.

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Credentialing knowledge through the real-time exchange of information provides a next generation technology that is adaptive, personalized, and empowering.

Megathread’s Core Benefits

  • Awareness: ¬†A comprehensive understanding of the top influencers, trending topics, relevant discussions, and distinct concepts that apply to various areas of study in and out of the online classroom.
  • Credibility: ¬†A real-time, real world application that credentials knowledge for students, educators, curriculum, schools, and organizations in any subject of study.
  • Interconnectivity: An integrative learning ecosystem that identifies and matches the qualities, skills, and needs of students, professionals, and institutions while integrating the online classroom with emerging events and real world applications.

Megathread in Online Education

Megathread’s open social credentials can be integrated with existing online communities in education or applied to social technologies such as Badges (or any form of social profile, avatar, or identifier) in order to:

  • Qualify & quantify students, curriculum, educators, and institutions in any subject
  • Personalize online classrooms of any size (perfect for MOOC‚Äôs)
  • Integrate the classroom and curriculum with real-time, real-world situations
  • Connect students, educators, researchers, and institutions based on shared interests
  • Identify innovation and novelty in and out of the classroom
  • Create a life-long learning environment and a singular-semantic Web

For more information on Megathread, our open social credentials, or our strategy for creating a singular-semantic Web, please contact me directly at Brian (at) Megathread (dot) com.

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How is Megathread “Safe” for education?
Our extremely unique, proprietary process does not threaten personal privacy
or the proprietary nature of curriculum, the classroom or institutions as a whole.