Since all the news today revolves around one item I really don’t care to hear about, I decided to further the work on IntoxiNation 3.0. I have let a few people have a peak at the test site and they are highly impressed with the new features being incorporated into the site. 99.99999% of the programming is done (never know if that little problem creeps up – keep the old fingers crossed), so all I have left is some final testing and minor customization.

I decided to benchmark the new site against the old site today (I also have a copy of this site on my test server also). The outcome of those tests were mind boggling. IntoxiNation 3.0 is adding many new features, yet can handle about 5 times the traffic. This should eliminate a lot of the slow loads we have experienced lately.

While working on the new release of IntoxiNation, I banged my head over the direction I wanted to take the site. This was probably the hardest part to say the least. I want to keep the style of a blog, but also make more of a “progressive social networking” site. With the new system that dream is becoming a reality. Anyone that joins the new site will have be able to maintain their own blogs. Also we will pick the best blog entries to promote to the front page. This is just one of the many new features you will see with IntoxiNation 3.0.

As many may have noticed, the old IntoxiNation forums have been closed. Sadly this is one item I will not be able to import. That is not to say there won’t be forums in the new system. Previously the forums were a separate system that required users to maintain two accounts. The new system will have forums integrated into it. No more having to keep two accounts – one will do it all. I have also been reworking the forum categories to provide a wider range of places to keep discussions going.

These are not really new features, but rather enhancements to the old features. If all goes well then I hope to move to the new system within the next few days. Stay tuned – things are going to get exciting!