I just saw the news, Buddypress 1.2 is now available. It’s a plugin (or an ecosystem really) that lets you add a social network to your WordPress installation. The big thing about it was that up too now you needed a WordPress MU installation to make use of it. This new version works on a standard installation of WordPress, which means anyone can make use of it. There are some other great things in this release, like a brand new theme and simplified installation; but nothing as big as the standard installation feature.

So how does it work? Let’s say you had a blog about childbirth and raising kids; you could deploy Buddypress onto the blog, so people can debate home schooling, cocoa butter stretch marks or whatever subject that your network wanted to debate.

Have you ever wanted to add a social network to your WordPress installation? Well, if you’re interesting there’s a super plugin called BuddyPress you might want to try out. It’s designed for WordPress MU and allows different users to interact with each other, send messages to one another, use forums and all the other things you’d expect from a social network.

The great thing about the fact that it runs on WordPress is that you can take advantage of all the plugins that WordPress brings to the table. Whether it’s anti-spam, or online backup or a graphic plugin, WordPress has a whole bunch to choose from. Try it out if you get the opportunity.

• Fixed an issue where themes designed for BuddyPress 1.0 would cause a signup page failure.
• Fixed issues with creating and posting on private and hidden group forums.
• Fixed missing forum topic title in activity stream entry when editing a forum post.
• Fixed missing ability to pass an array of template files to load.
• Fixed post new topic and post new reply links displaying on group forums, even when logged out.
• Fixed issues with viewing paginated friend lists in the default theme.
• Fixed issue with multiple ajax loaders on the groups and friends pages for a user when searching or clicking navigation.
• Added username compatibility fallback setting to provide support for dots in LDAP usernames.

If you haven’t come across is before BuddyPress is an addon for WordPress MU that lets you layer a social network type system on top of your blogging platform. You can use it for whatever you like, from a scientific network, discussing the latest breakthroughs and research; all the way to a diet forum talking about diet pill reviews and trading diet tips. Download it here.

There are a few changes in this release, but the biggest one for me is the change in theming strategy. BuddyPress now uses child themes which makes it much easier to create an manage all the different pages in the site. Child themes work a bit like adding bed wedges to a bed; you have the same underlying theme, but you’ve overlaid it with something that can change the shape, style and layout of what you’re building.

So, go get the new download, but make sure you read the instructions on how you migrate to the latest version.