Today I was looking for a way to add social networking features to one of my blogs. I already know about Buddypress, but unfortunatly it only works for Wordpress MU and not a standalone install of Wordpress. Also, Buddypress themeing can be pretty challenging if you don’t want to use the default theme. I came across a brand new plugin called Mingle. This plugin was released just a couple of days ago and it is promising. I tested it out and found some bugs, but the creator fixed them promptly and it now works great. Although this plugin is very new, it has many of the features that make a great social experience for your users.

Mingle’s features include:

-Easy Setup and Install
-User Profile Pages
-User Friending
-User Profile Posting (for friends)
-User Profile Post Commenting (for friends)
-Friend Activity Pages (Much like Facebook’s activity feed.)
-Full Member Directory
-Login & Navigation Widget
-Random or Recent Users Widget
-Email Notifications
-User Email Notification Opt-Outs
-Best of all it’s free!

Another great part about this plugin is that it fits pretty much seamlessly into any existing Wordpress theme, which is another reason Buddypress doesn’t cut it for some.

Give it a try:
Author Homepage

Download

Installation:

1. Upload ‘mingle.zip’ or the unzipped mingle folder to the ‘/wp-content/plugins/’ directory

2. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress

3. Create a new page for: “Activity”, “Profile”, “Profile Settings”, “Friends”, “Friend Requests” and “Directory”. To do this look in the left sidebar in your Wordpress admin dashboard and look for “Pages” and click on add new. Add each of the mentioned page titles. Once you finish creating the new pages look at the settings area on your dashboard and you should see the Mingle menu. From there all you have to do is choose which pages correspond with the Mingle pages from the provided dropdown lists.

That’s it. A very simple installation and configuration. The author of this plugin (Blair Williams) stated that he will be adding new features, so keep an eye out for updates.

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