WordPress users can display blog post, custom post type, RSS feed or custom post type news using a highly customizable bar at the top or bottom of their sites. Whereas BuddyPress users can display all BuddyPress network activity using a dynamic bar at the bottom of their site.
News Bar Plugin For WordPress
News bar is a free WordPress plugin allows you to display your latest tweets, posts, custom post types or posts from a certain category. You can change the bar location from top to bottom, it offers you various bar themes and you can also use your custom colors and dimensions.
Other than blog and twitter activity, the plugin offers five custom icons with links, you can use these icons for showing your social profiles on your website. Install and activate it then configure its settings from Dashboard -> Settings -> News Bar page.
BuddyPress Activity Stream Bar
BuddyPress Activity Stream Bar plugin adds a bar at the bottom of every website page, displays latest 20 activities and rotates them.
All you have to do for using this plugin is activate it. That’s all. It automatically starts showing recent BuddyPress site wide activity using a bar at the bottom of your website. You may use left-right arrow buttons on the left for checking out different site activities. Your site visitors can manually hide this bar. For changing its color etc you have to dig into its CSS file. If you need any help on editing its CSS, then reply back here.