Six Apart Wednesday plans to roll out a new version of its Movable Type software, which the company says will allow bloggers and blog publishers to add social networking and content management capabilities to their content.

Movable Type Pro, which will be available on Wednesday, includes tools that allow Web site or blog owners to build a social networks around their content. Readers and visitors who become members of a site can use the software to build profiles, rate content and follow content added by others, Six Apart said.

"The readers can establish their own profiles and can ask questions, participate in forums, recommend stories and vote for stories," said Chris Alden, Six Apart's CEO. "You can actually build your own private label social network and blog publishing site."

In addition to the new social networking features, Movable Type Pro also adds a custom fields feature site owners can use to add new attributes to their content, thus boosting the content management capabilities of the software, added Ed Anuff, general manager of Six Apart's Movable Type division.

"The type of Web site that you build with Movable Type doesn't have to look like a classic two- or three-column blog," he added. "It can be structured to look like any Web site you see surfing the Web. Web publishing is moving from a heavily process-driven activity to being something more decentralized, something more inclusive of community and being able to build Web sites in a more rapid and agile fashion. We really view Movable Type as part of sea change in Web content management toward a social publishing direction."

Six Apart Tuesday also plans to roll out new capabilities for its core Movable Type blog software. Six Apart said new core of Movable Type 4.2 includes:

Better performance;

Simplified default templates that make it easy to get up and running quickly;

A free open source antispam product, TypePad Antispam; and

Improved search and threaded commenting.

Movable Type 4.2 is available under a free, open source license or as part of Movable Type Pro. Movable Type Pro is free for the individual blogger, US$395.95 for five users, and $1499.95 for 20 users.