Re: realtime activities update
This is now officially a “Potential Future BuddyPress Feature” for BP 1.4+ (ie, after BP 1.3, which looks to be essentially the WP 3.0 compatibility release). Here is the short list:
A quick blog post form via the theme. (try plugin: BuddyPress QuickPress)
Privacy controls (try plugin: bp-authz)
Global content tagging
Inappropriate content flagging
Bulk accept/reject friendship requests
Grouping of similar activity stream items
Ability to block all communication from a user
Option to receive forum post notifications via email
Message file attachments
Structured profile fields (templates for address / phone number)
Profile field specific searching (try plugin: BP Member Filter)
AJAX live updating of site wide activity stream
