Lead Developer Andy Peatling has announced that BuddyPress 1.2, the latest version of the WordPress social networking add-on, is now available.
The release is notable because it works with standard WordPress installs. Previously, it would only work with WordPress MU.
This means that bloggers and podcasters using WordPress can now have a self-hosted solution for creating social neworks, instead of relying on third-party sites like Ning.
New in BuddyPress 1.2:
Standard WordPress Support
Simplified installation
Improved activity streams.
Features of BuddyPress include:
Global, personal and group activity streams
Fully editable profile fields allow you to define the fields users can fill in to describe themselves
Powerful public, private or hidden groups
“Friending”
Private messaging will allow your users to talk to each other directly, and in private.
Full powered discussion forums
Each of your users can start their own full powered WordPress blog.
Easily extendable with plugins
BuddyPress promises to let you get up and running with your own social network in 6 minutes.
That’s a stretch – but, even if it takes you several days to configure it to meet your needs, BuddyPress an unprecedented level of power to WordPress bloggers and podcasters.
I recently scheduled a meeting with someone who sent me to www.tungle.com It was cool. I got to pick what time worked for my schedule, and it then integrated it with my google calendar. Very cool.
I decided to sign up for a free account. Here I can go in and set the times when I’m available for meetings. If I want to schedule a meeting with someone, instead of sending email back and forth saying “that won’t work for me,” they can go to my dedicated page at tungle.com When they choose a time, it automatically reminds them of the meeting, and puts it on my calendar. This calendar then syncs with my google calendar (and other calendar types are available).
Here again, I’m not sure how you turn “Free” into a business plan, but who cares. It works and makes my life easier.
There are all sorts of ways to share your schedule on your websites, facebook, twitter, etc. There is even an iphone app.
As I’ve said before a new twitter application is born about every 30 seconds in the world, but a listener “Brian” pointed out three that he finds useful.
Tweetstats
This service shows you how many tweets you’ve posted, and when you posted them (which day, etc). You can find it at www.tweetsats.com
Twitter Counter
You can find this one at www.twittercounter.com
Twitter counter is pretty darn cool. Not only does it show your growth over some set periods of time it’ll also show you your average growth per day.
It’s been fascinating to watch how the growth changes depending on a number of different factors such as if I auto-follow everyone who follows me.
Twitter Grader
Last but not least is Twitter Grader at http://twitter.grader.com/
This one is useful when you want to connect with some of the larger twitter users in a local area (like at conference, etc). It’s pretty much a ego meter.
The release is notable because it works with standard WordPress installs. Previously, it would only work with WordPress MU.
