By the time you’re reading this, it is quite possible that the BuddyPress revolution will have happened, but if you’re reading this soon after this was posted, I can safely say that the BuddyPress revolution hasn’t happened yet. It’s under way, but is hasn’t happened.

What on earth are you going on about?! I’ll go back a step. You’ve probably got some idea what BuddyPress is and will have heard about it, but chances are you don’t really know what it is exactly. Well, in a nutshell, BuddyPress turns your WPMU (the version of WordPress that allows you to have multiple blogs, i.e. the software WordPress.com uses)  installation and turns it into a fully functional social network! In other words (from BuddyPress.org):

BuddyPress will add a social networking layer to a new or existing installation of WordPress MU. BuddyPress is a suite of WordPress plugins and themes, each adding a distinct new feature. BuddyPress contains all the features you’d expect from WordPress but aims to let members socially interact.

But WordPress MU isn’t as popular as WordPress.org… No. It’s not, which is probably one of the reasons that a version of BuddyPress for the standard install of WordPress is in the works. There’s no official release date yet, but word on the.. er… web. is that it’ll be available in a couple of months. Taking a step back here, how awesome would that be! For those of you who have multiple writers or even just readers signing up on your blog, you can now message them with exciting stuff happening on your site and all of the other exciting stuff that comes with BuddyPress (although features will probably differ slightly between WP and WPMU).

But I want to try it out now! You do?! That’s lucky, as I’ve just written a series of posts about BuddyPress on my blog, Nometech.com! The series, in three parts takes you through the installation of WordPress MU in part one, then the installation of BuddyPress in part two and finally customizing and ‘getting to grips’ with BuddyPress in part three.

I’ve got something to say about this. Leave a comment below then. And you heard it here first. The BuddyPress revolution is coming!

This post was submitted by Alex Denning, a Twitter fan and WordPress blogger on Nometech.com.

I know many of our readers use BuddyPress, so I wanted to pass along that BuddyPress 1.0 has finally been officially released.   If you are interested, you can download BuddyPress 1.0 here.

Now that BuddyPress offers the ability to create BuddyPress plugins as well as BuddyPress Themes, I imagine that its popularity will continue to grow.  It also looks like they are already working on the next release.  

According to Andy Peatling:

This is just the first step on a long road ahead. So much is possible now that we have a solid WordPress-based social framework to build upon.

The status updates and gallery components are next on the roadmap, you can expect to see versions of those components appearing later this year. We’ll also be going through the hundreds of enhancement tickets we’ve received, and with your help prioritizing them for future versions.

I’m most excited to see what plugin developers and theme designers can come up with. Even in the pre-release stages, plugins to extend and add functionality have already been popping up. If you’re a plugin developer or theme designer, be sure to check out the skeleton component and skeleton theme. These packages will provide you with a solid starting point to build BuddyPress components and custom themes from.

To those of you that use BuddyPress, what do you think of the latest update?