Getting CommunityServer

A call from a customer prompts me to make sure that folks who are interested in downloading and using the cool new CommunityServer blog software (plus forums and photo gallery features) that now powers blogs.msdn.com know where to find it. It's easy to miss if you're not sure where to look.

On the TelligentSystems store page for CommunityServer, you'll see a price list for various editions of Community Server for commercial use. Towards the middle of the page, though, is the link that provides access to the download for non-profit, non-commercial, and evaluation use. If you're looking for blog software to run your own blog or blogs, this is one you definitely want to try. I've been using the earlier version, .Text, since I started blogging more than a year ago, both in aggregated blogs (on weblogs.asp.net, and later on blogs.msdn.com) as well as on my personal blog, which I hosted using .Text on a third-party web host. Community Server blogs are a big step up from what was already a great blogging server software, and Scott Watermasysk and the rest of the folks at Telligent should take a bow for a great 1.0 release.

Also not to be missed in the congrats are our own Betsy Aoki, and her team who make the blogs go here at Microsoft, for their great work in upgrading the bazillion Microsoft blogs to Community Server. :-)

UPDATE:
You can also download Community Server (including the source code) from the Community Server Forums site.