The month of May marked the first anniversary of JPeople, also known as The People Site. Please join me with a look in looking back at this amazing year and celebrate the accomplishments that have happened right here in our Social Network.

May 2010: The anticipation reached a crescendo as the People Site prepared for its official Beta launch. The many leaders and volunteers on this project were in their respective positions and the time arrived. I remember the day as if it were yesterday. With so many unknowns of how the community would want to use the site, it was intentionally only loosely defined for the first few days. Within only a few hours it had become clear on what the community wanted and the definition was firmly defined. The same outlines and definitions are still in play today.

June 2010: Translators from many languages volunteered to be Community Managers.

July 2010: JPeople was featured in the Joomla! Community Magazine http://magazine.Joomla!.org/topics/item/85-Interview-The-Joomla!-People-Portal-Admins JPeople also celebrated reaching 4,000 members.

August 2010: JAnswers was added to the JPeople site

November 2010: By request of the community, the JPeople Admin Group was launched opening the door to every Group Admin to communicate directly with the Site Admins, other Group Admins and also the Moderators of the site. This exciting step was a first in this degree of openness.

May 2011: What an amazing month for JPeople with membership reaching nearly 7,000 members, 1604 photos, 443 videos, 513 Groups and 57 categories it easy to see that JPeople really is a great place to collaborate with others. As JPeople matured this year it also found a need for a Communications Manager which Isidro Baquero graciously accepted. The Joomla! Leadership Team also added new openness to the project by opening a group for feedback on leadership topics and last but not least, a JPeople group was created for small projects that are needed in the Joomla! community of sites.

We are looking forward to an even more fascinating journey in the next year including new features, activities and groups. I recently spoke to Azrul, the creator of JomSocial, about what is coming in the future.

"Happy birthday JPeople! We are very excited to be part of JPeople! development. In the coming year, our focus is to make JPeople site fun! Period. We really want to see Joomla! community to have the most amazing time in any Open Source project in the world! Having said that, software plays* only a small part. Great work by the site admins and your participation bring this site alive." Azrul Creator of JomSocial

The JPeople Social Site has been instrumental in bringing new users and volunteers into the community. Happy Birthday JPeople, it has been a great first year!

"JPeople is what got me really involved with Joomla! It put me in touch with the Joomla! Community Magazine team and from there, people reached out and made me feel very welcome. Congratulations and Happy 1st Birthday, JPeople!!" Dianne Henning, OSM

"Hartelijk gefeliciteerd met de eerste verjaardag" Marijke Stuivenberg OSM

"Happy Birthyday J-People - you have given us one fun and fantastic year of being able to express ourselves, and connect our community in ways we never thought possible" Andrew Eddie

"Feliz cumpleaños JPeople" Isidro Baquero JPeople Team

“Feliz Aniversário JPeople! A festa é sua e o presente é nosso!” Manoel Silva JPeople Team Translation: "Happy Birthday JPeople! The party is yours and the gift is ours!"

“The union is strength in the Joomla! Community, congratulations J! People!!” Luis Méndez Alejo (gnumax) JPeople Team