We are delighted to announce the release of Pinax 0.9a2. This release represents a dramatic change in the way we do things but lays the foundation for Pinax 1.0 and beyond.

One common feature request we've had for Pinax is the ability for users to indicate that they "Like" some object. So, we wrote an app called phileo and open sourced it under a BSD license for use in Pinax and Django projects in general.

There are times when you have a publicly available site, so you don't need invites to join a private site. However, you would like to encourage users to tell people about your site and reward them for doing so. This is where anafero comes in as a referral app.

The Pinax platform has had its ups and downs since it was launched in 2008. People either love it or just don't get it. About the only thing everyone agrees on is that it doesn't seem to be progressing as fast as it once did. This talk took a fresh look at the goals of Pinax, what we did well, what we didn't do so well and what we're (slowly) doing to fix it.

It's a fairly common feature these days for sites to permit users to invite others to join the site. This is even more popular in closed, private beta sites that haven't launched yet where it is desirable for the user base to grow in an organic but controlled fashion.

DjangoCon is coming up soon and will be featuring a talk on Pinax and a two-day sprint.

A Pinax tutorial will be kicking off US PyCon 2011 in Atlanta and the conference sessions will be followed by a four-day Pinax sprint.

One of the core features of Pinax is the inclusion of various starter projects. There are three very different types of starter project, though, and knowing the distinction is important to understanding how best to use them.

We are pleased to see a Pinax tutorial at Confoo.ca 2011 by Markus Franz.

The Pinax project has a newly designed website.