Matt Mullenweg, founder of the WordPress blogging application, recently announced on his own blog that his Automattic company has hired Andy Peating. Andy Peating is the creator of BuddyPress which is a WordPress Multui-User based social network platform.

It’s clear that the future is social. Connections are key. WordPress MU is a platform which has shown itself to be able to operate at Internet-scale and with BuddyPress we can make it friendlier. Someday, perhaps, the world will have a truly Free and Open Source alternative to the walled gardens and open-only-in-API platforms that currently dominate our social landscape.

This is significant news in a number of aspects and indicates the direction many of today's content management systems are taking or need to take (more discussion from me on this at a later date). A number of bloggers haven't missed the significance of this move by Automattic either. This TechCrunch post talks about the possibilities I'm also thinking about when mixing open source with social software:

"Blogs are also just one tier in the frenzied social media industry that encompasses Facebook and others. Asked how his [Matthew Mullenweg's] software meshes with sites like Facebook, he said he'd like to see more incorporation between the two. Because ultimately, he said, blogs are more telling of a person's personality. That's why he believes WordPress will become a more popular social-network platform, allowing people to post things like widgets of their Facebook profile on a blog or vice versa."

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"So 1 day after the announcement, 104 people have signed up that they're coming to WordCamp and 58 have joined the mailing list. Wow! Thank you, as this has been a huge help in determining what sort of resources we're going to need to pull this thing off. Now the big challenge is finding a venue appropiate for the event, feel free to ping me if you have any ideas."