If you currently run, have previously visited, or are actively part of some a community based site then I’m sure you have stumbled upon Community Server. Currently on version 2007 SP2, this agile web based asp.net  application allows you to swiftly deploy and build on a framework tailored to community based sites.  The application was born thanks to the merger of .TEXT blog engine, nGallery, and ASP.NET FORUMS back in early 2005.

Features:

• Forums system which can integrate with email discussion lists and news servers
• Publishing system that manages single and multi-user blogs
• File and photo sharing integrated with forums and blogs
• Content mirroring to enable content syndication and republishing
• Integrated search across blogs, forums, photos, and files in one consistent UI
• Integrated tagging support throughout all applications
• Search engine-friendly permalink structure
• Extensible with support for plug-in modules, scheduled jobs, and spam rules
• Automatic TrackBacks and Pingback
• WYSIWYG HTML editing
• Control panel with consistent tools for community management
• Single sign-on authentication modules available for forms authentication, cookies,
• Active Directory, and Windows Live ID
• Source code for all core components available in the free SDK download

Hosting:

ASP.net 2.0 along with MS SQL 2000 or 2005 are required to run CS 2007.
If you are an existing appliedi.net customer it means you can run it on any of our plans as long as you have  MS SQL (the Value Plus is the only plan not including MS SQL and therefore it must be purchased as an add-on).
http://www.appliedi.net/shared-hosting/
It’s easy to get started on the value plus and upgrade on the fly to a vs-1 or a vs-2. As I have mentioned on a prior post, the main and most meaningful difference on these packages is the maximum allowed size of the worker process. In other words, how much memory your application is allowed to use up on the server. The value plus is ideal for development stages but not for production as a couple concurrent users will quickly make the WP grow to over 100 MB.

New & Events:

On the dates of October 20th thought the 21st Telligent will hold the 1st ever Community Server Developers Conference. Appliedi.net will play a sponsor role on the new event. If you are reader of this blog and plan on visiting the event please be sure to drop by the booth and say hello.
Here are the full details on the event: http://csdc.communityserver.org/Sessions/