Chyrp Microblogging Platform

I've been looking at open source micro blogging software. Ultimately trying to help out my Uncle find a twitter clone that he can customize for his own site.

Laconica is ok, but requires alot of backend programming, something my Uncle and I are still novices at. It's been hard so far to find a user friendly, easily customizable micro-blogging platform.

Another alternative involved using Google Apps to build the platform on, and python. We're looking for something that requires uploading a zip or .gz file and attaching a database much the same as wordpress, drupal and other content management systems are installed. In fact that describes the problem exactly, where is an easy micro blogging CMS? This is still under investigation..

I came close with Chyrp, however it is a single poster blog, Only the admin can 'chyrp' and it is not yet apparant what the advantage of additional registered users is other then the fact that you can set your posts to be viewable by registered users only.

Chyrp is easy to install requiring you to upload the zip file to your webserver - extract and locate the install.php file. (perfect)

Once installed and in your admin panel, the first feature I noticed was the database queries toggle. It shows a list of how many queries your database has had, the load time and details of each query. This would benefit you in the event you had to trace an error in coding, or a badly installed module or feather.

Customizing your chyrp blog is easy through the admin panel. There are links to new themes, modules and feathers. Feathers appear to just be light weight modules. To install you will need to download the feather or module from chyrp.net/extend --> upload to matching directory and enable in your admin panel.

When posting a chyrp you can choose whether posts are public, private, registered members only, group and more.

Pinned option lets post sit above all others. Great if you have a hot 'off' topic.

"Attach trackback; special urls to posts from other blogs that your post is related to or references. The other blog will be notified of your post, and in some cases a comment will automatically be added to the post in question linking back to your post. It's bascially a way to network between blogs between posts."

You can create pages which will appear in the menu on the right sidebar. '
Pages can be re-ordered at will.
You can use basic html in your pages.

Other features

Can enable clean URLs

Set Time to post Chyrp

Multiple admin users enabling more then one blogger. You will need to change registered user settings in the admin panel to "admin" and remember to change it back once all of your admin accounts have been activated.

Chyrp allows you to post photo's and video's in your chyrps. You will need to activate the required feathers.

As I researched this post and other micro-blogging software I found tumblr, which may be the multi user option of chyrp. The investigation continues.....

Check out Web Geek's Chyrp Demo