Joomla! has just announced the release of Joomla 3.0 ( see http://www.joomla.org/announcements/release-news/5464-joomla-3-0-0-released.html)

Joomla 2.5 is still the long term release version and the version we recommend to anyone planning to start building a new Joomla website.

We are currently reviewing Joomla 3.0 and will publish a Joomla 3.0 edition by the end of October.

According to the Joomla website:

What are the new features of Joomla! 3?

• Incorporation of Twitter Bootstrap into a jui media package.
• A new responsive, mobile device friendly administrator template--Isis-- and interface.
• A new front end template--Protostar-- built using Twitter Bootstrap.
• Updated accessible template called Beez3.
• A simplified 3-step installation process.
• PostgreSQL Driver. You will be able to run Joomla 3.0 sites using the PostgreSQL database.
• PHP Memcached Driver
• Use of JFeed for feed management rather than SimplePie
• Installation of language packages directly from the extension manager
• Guest user group present by default
• Saving blank articles allowed
• New administrator statistics module
• Update TinyMCE to version 3.5.6
• Continued clean up of older unused code, files and database fields and tables and improved standardization of tables.
• Improvements to Smart Search
• Extensive work on code style standardisation and consistency
• Unit testing in the CMS
• Updated system tests in the CMS
• Custom active menu item for menu module
• Let the SEF plug-in add the canonical url to the head
• Version 12.2 of the Joomla Platform

This release also includes the current version (12.2) of the Joomla! Platform, which includes a large number of new and improved packages.

Here is a summary of the changes which have been introduced by Joomla 2.5 (some of which were included in the earlier releases 1.6 & 1.7), in the areas of functionality, administrative interface, and templates design compared with Joomla 1.5 the previous long term stable release. Readers who require detailed information about the changes to the underlying programming structure should refer to the Joomla website for more information.

Learn Joomla!, one of the most popular Joomla books, has just released a fully revised and rewritten edition of the book, available now for download. Every single step-by-step instruction has been tested with the new stable Joomla 2.5 release. New sections are included on 1-click updating, Access Control (ACL), Categories, Template Manager and Migration. The list of recommended 3rd party extensions has been reviewed and completely updated. New extension instructions included are Hikashop, Akeeba Backup, and a range of Social Networking modules. The book comes with 3 free general purpose Joomla 2.5 templates.