Pligg CMS, the Digg.com clone is about to become a big time contender. With all the trends moving towards social communities Pligg has made itself a niche. While other content management systems have yet to gain on Pligg , Pligg has now made significant gains on the others. Beta 9 has been released and brings with it a number of surprise features.

Pligg.com announced that Pligg has turned one year old. To celebrate the anniversary of the founding of Pligg they have released a new version of the CMS, Beta 9. Beta 9 offers a list of new features and a brand new template.

New features
• Added a module system to easily delete features you don't want
• Google Adsense Revenue sharing (module)
• Embed Video (module) Google, Youtube + Xoinks (Pligg recommends Xoinks!)
• New default template - DigitalNature (thanks to Unu + Kbeeveer46)
• RSS Importer
• Private Messaging (module)
• Category Manager - allows for sub-categories
• Basic version checking. (module)
• Site statistics (module)
• Random story (module)
• Ajax contact form (module)
• nifty cube support so your vote boxes can uses rounded corners at the push of a button (module)
• Table prefixes
• Popular/Upcoming mod http://www.pligg.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2175
• 5 Star Rating
• Mod to prevent users from forgetting to submit stories in step 3 http://www.pligg.com/forum/showpost....70&postcount=1
• Administrators can edit story URL
• "Read more" link in story summaries
• Added avatars to "who voted for this story"
• Added discarded.php to easily view discarded stories.
• Killspam user to delete the users' stories, change their comments to say "This comment has been deleted by an administrator", and changed the users' password so they can't login again.

The one feature that standsout for me, probably because I needed it, is the ability to prefix database tables. Because even today many good web hosts still limit their accounts to a single MySQL database. But it also means that Pligg CMS can now take on the task of sharing a website with other web applications. Now you will find it easy to integrate a forum or e-commerce CMS to a Pligg run website.

Another significant feature is the new default theme. Looks are a big convincer when it comes to gaining new users. Take a look at the theme at the demo site.

Please take a moment to help spread the word by voting for Pligg Beta 9 over at Digg:
Digg their announcement

Happy Publishing!

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