Six Apart today announced an update to Movable Type and the launch of Movable Type Pro, a new version that’s designed to let you build your own social networking sites. 

Or as Six Apart puts it, “think Digg in a box”.

What’s New in Movable Type 4.2

• Movable Type Pro lets you turn any site into a full social publishing platform, combining all of Movable Type’s abilities as a blogging and CMS with social networking features like profiles, ratings, user registration, forums and following.
• The platform upgrade to Movable Type 4.2 fulfills the top three MT community requests:

It’s faster for common tasks; 

It features much simpler templates for customizing your site; and

It includes 100% free and open source TypePad AntiSpam for keeping junk comments off your site.

• Movable Type Pro includes all of the features in the Movable Type Community Solution. If you’re a personal blogger or have a current MT license, Movable Type Pro is a free upgrade.

Social Networking Features:

• You can add forums, community blogs and group blogs to your site, and you can keep track of all those conversations using a single set of tools.
• It’s easy to allow anyone on the web to register on your site, or to sign in with OpenID support. Members get full-fledged customizable profiles, personalized user pictures (avatars), and can follow their friends or other site members they’re interested in.
• Any member of your community can, with appropriate permissions, submit content for publishing on your site. Administrators have full ability to review submissions, and submitted posts show up on user profiles right next to their comments and other activity. 
• Any registered user on your site can vote for content they like, making it easy to create “most popular” or “most recommended” lists on your site. You can also create voting communities within your site.

The announcement is good news for all bloggers, because it raises the bar for blogging platforms. If you’ve got a popular podcast, blog or Internet video, you’ll soon be able to turn your site into a social network, using canned components from Movable Type, WordPress and others. 

WordPress has already announced its own social networking add-ons, with BuddyPress, but they aren’t expected to be finalized until the end of the year.