WordPress has long been known as a dedicated blogging platform, giving users the tools they need to publish their message and interact with readers.  However, with the official release of version 3.0, set to drop this month, the platform will be much closer, if not well within the territory of a content management system (CMS).

The list of new features in WordPress 3.0 isn’t very long in comparison to previous releases.  However, the changes that are coming will certainly have a significant impact, particularly if you use WordPress as a CMS.  Here is a rundown of the most important new features arriving in version 3.0.

Let us know in the comments which features of WordPress 3.0 you are most looking forward to.

1. Custom Post Types

By default, WordPress lets you publish two types of content: “Posts” and “Pages”  In version 3.0, you can define additional content types with their own attributes.  For example, if you’re running a WordPress site for a design agency, you might create a custom post type to display portfolio items, another for employee pages, and another for client testimonials.  From there, you can customize your theme to better suit each individual post type.

You might even want to turn your WordPress site into something more like Tumblr. This will be easy to do in WordPress 3.0 simply by creating custom post types for Text, Photo, Quote, Link, Chat, Audio, and Video.

Thanks to custom post types, there are many new possibilities for how you use WordPress to publish any sort of content.

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