BuddyPress 1.2 Released

Andy Peatling has announced on the official BuddyPress development blog that version 1.2 is now available to the public. This version is a milestone because BuddyPress can now be used on standard WordPress installations whereas before, you needed to have WordPress MU installed. Other goodies that 1.2 offers include:

Simplified Install Process – This version only uses three steps and has done away with the manual installation routine.

New Default Themes – Andy Peatling must have drank the default theme kool-aid as 1.2 sports a new, out of the box look.

Activity Streams – Activity streams have been revamped. Each activity stream item has it’s own permalink making bookmarking or saving the event much easier. Any user can comment on activity across the site with support for threaded conversations. You can also publish events to a group activity stream or site wide while also marking activity items as favorites.

If you don’t want to test BuddyPress by installing it on a live or local site, take a gander at the BuddyPress Test drive website which is using the latest version.

Congratulations to Andy Peatling, John James Jacoby and everyone who contributed to the release. It seems like it was only yesterday when 1.0 was released where the most requested feature was support for standard WordPress installations. Now that BuddyPress can be used on regular WordPress sites, expect to see BuddyPress empowering the social nature of WordPress sites all across the web.