MovableType announced the release of MT 4.2 PRO, which according to their announcement has added social networking features right into the platform. This update puts the focus of their platform squarely on extending the social aspects of each and every MovableType 4.2 Pro blog. Considering blogs were the first link in the social networking chain, it seems only right that it would come back full circle. Most bloggers use social networks extensively to extend the reach of their blog, and it has become the common secondary effort of most bloggers.

What occurred to me as I read the announcement is that this signals the end of “social” as a separate movement or technology. “Social” technologies have been slowly worming their way into everything, and MovableType Pro is a perfect example of that permeation. This complete transformation of the web into this massive social network hasn’t happened yet, but it’s coming, and platforms like MovableType are making social the standard rather than the exception.

I’ve mentioned before about how I feel some corporations are missing the idea by creating their own social networks, rather than leveraging existing ones - and I still believe this is the better way to go. But this trend it signals a shift in thinking by companies to not only accepting some transparency but embracing it as a part of their brand experience. This is a good change in philosophy, regardless of whether I agree with their choice of technology.

So this move by SixApart is a savvy one that accepts the direction the web has gone, and I’m definitely downloading and installing MovableType Pro on one of my personal blogs to see what it’s all about.

Have you tried it yet?

Tags: blog-platforms, blogsite-platforms, movabletype, social-networking

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 14th, 2008 at 6:00 am and is filed under Blogging Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.