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pligg, the open source content management system that let’s you create socially driven sites like digg, is up for sale. included in the sale is the domain name and the website, and the sourceForge account where you can download the cms from. pligg has been controversial not only because of how it replicates digg but also because of internal troubles.

here’s a snippet from the official email confirming that the site is on the market:

The Pligg community has grown larger than ever expected, with over 10,000 registered users sharing and trading tips, more than 60,000 Sourceforge downloads and 2 IRC rooms that are active 24/7. It’s become an extremely large project and community to manage. We all have day jobs and struggle to find enough time to keep up the pace.

corank, the site that let’s you make your own socially driven site (think digg), announced yesterday that they have released their own api. while the api allows some basic calls right now and more functionality is on the way, the best part is that the api automatically applies to every site that you make using the corank system. what this means is that if you make your own digg-like site, users can make applications for your site without requiring you to release an api and simply by using the corank api.

One thing to note is that this first version of the API is read-only. That is, you can read data from your coRanking site, but you cannot use the API to write things. In other words, you can read data from stories, users, who voted what, comments, etc. but cannot use the API to cast a vote, submit a story or a comment.

We left the “write” part of the API for the next version, coming very soon. But even before the next version comes out, we’re already working on a new group of “read-only” calls to provide even more functionality and flexibility very soon, so check this blog often.

if you use the api and feel something is missing (apart from the features that are already under construction), be sure to let them know.

the blogosphere is talking about facebook’s source code being leaked and though most people (including myself) can’t make sense of the leaked code, it does beg an important question: what does this mean for the safety and privacy of our personal information on facebook?

here’s a comment left by brandee barker of facebook on techcrunch,

Hi Nic-

I wanted to clarify a few things in your story. Some of Facebook’s source code was exposed to a small number of users due to a bug on a single server that was misconfigured and then fixed immediately. It was not a security breach and did not compromise user data in any way. The reprinting of this code violates several laws and we ask that people not distribute it further.

Thanks to you and the TC readers for helping us out on this one.

Brandee Barker
Facebook

while this might be true, it certainly seems like an attempt by facebook to minimize the negative press from the incident. and in spite of how isolated and innocuous the issue may be, the question still remains about the potential for worse breaches in the future and what facebook is doing (and steps the site’s millions of users should take) to prevent sensitive data from being compromised.

the reason why i started using facebook some 4 years ago was because of its exclusivity and privacy settings (when compared to myspace, etc.). i have to admit that now that facebook doesn’t really distinguish itself in that regard anymore, and with the rise clutter on the site (due to the facebook open platform and the applications built on it), i find myself visiting the site less and less.