Six Apart announced the beta release of Movable Type 4, a blogging platform designed to meet the website content management needs of growing organizations and to serve as a social media platform that enables businesses to create community-driven websites.

Today’s announcement marks the first of a series of new products, features, and services around Six Apart’s flagship blogging platform that will be unveiled throughout the summer. What is more important is Six Apart’s announcement also that it is launching the Movable Type Open Source Project, an initiative that will cultimate in the release of an open source version of Movable Type this year.

“We support a wide range of industry leaders for publishing, marketing, and internal communications,” said Chris Alden, EVP and General Manager of the Professional Division at Six Apart. “These are world-class blogs, organizations and individuals that demand flexibility, scalability and interactivity as they deploy blogs on a global scale. MT4 has been re-designed and re-architected as a platform to address their needs while providing a basis to build social networking features that re-define the scope of blogging.”