There’s lots going on here at SE central, so we’d like to take a minute to share some exciting new features that we’re working on for the upcoming release of SocialEngine 4.1, as well as some other announcements:
1. Membership billing: This is one of the most frequently requested features so we’re glad to announce it will be offered as a free upgrade to all SE4 clients. Utilizing the existing “Member Levels” feature of your site, you’ll now have the ability to bill members and provide them with access to premium content and functionality. This adds a whole new method of monetizing your social network and monetizing is key to a website’s success. The billing is handled by 2checkout.com, an excellent payment processor which handles debit/credit payments from all parts of the world and even allows for Paypal payments.
2. Automatic package downloader: We’re working on making SE upgrades simpler. With SE 4.0, we started by adding a new package manager that simplifies installing mods and plugins. Now, we’ve added an optional automatic package installer that will let you pull packages and most upgrades directly from our servers, drastically simplifying the process. Of course, you can still optionally use the old method of installing packages yourself if you prefer.
In other news, we’re finishing up the SocialEngine 4.0.1 upgrade and should have it released in the next couple days. It includes a huge batch of bug fixes that we’ve been addressing in response to your feedback so keep an eye out for that. We know many of you are waiting on the SE3->SE4 upgrade script. We really appreciate your patience as we finish writing and testing it and hope to have it ready in about 2 weeks.
Lastly, we’re working on a full Ning importer that will make migration from Ning to SE a breeze. This will work with the “full export” that Ning is now providing its members. It’s currently in testing, so keep an eye out for that as well.
As you can see there’s lots going on so stay tuned, we’ll have many more announcements as SocialEngine 4 continues to grow.
