[Zone-MR]

As many of you may be aware, over the past week we have been working on a major redesign, upgrades, and improvments to the BetaONE forums and site.

This work is now nearing completion, and if everything goes as planned, the new system will go live sometime this weekend. Some of the new features which are in development:

* New and improved forum script, based on vbulletin
* Improved portal, featuring news from all around the beta community, and other useful information displayed in one convenient location.
* Our newest electronic member newsbot will collect and post news from other sites, keeping the betaone community up-to-date with the latest events as they happen
* Knowledgebase section for BetaONE members to share reviews and articles.
* Torrent tracker for sharing files (legal files only, such as service packs and free software betas).
* Improved integration with our sister IRC network (holics)
* All links will be search-engine friendly, making it easier for people to find BetaONE.
* Ability to create 'collaborative' posts, which other members can edit. Useful for maintaining up-to-date information.
* MSN messenger bot to alert MSN messenger users of new replies to their posts in real time

There will be a brief period of downtime, while data is transfered to the new site. This will happen sometime this weekend, and should last less than an hour if all goes well.

Stay tuned...