
I am finally in position to start the process

Its actually going to take some time for everything to be put in place so i am going to go for a staggered upgrade. The first step being the toughest, there will be a downtime. (and not a short one either

)
I will do this either tomorrow (Saturday early morning) or Sunday morning.
What to expect in Stage 1
1) Core backend upgrade.
2) A lot of native social networking features (Read most of
orkut chirkut

features)
3) Implementation of some of the suggestions (
Opinions wanted)(
Some Suggestions !!)
4) Opening up of
FE video zone(without uploading facility) (
Sorry, till such time i find a way to ensure copyright protection of the videos uploaded, i would not allow on site uploads.)
5) A lot of features you will never use
I also plan to shift to a fixed width style for guests. Logged in members will not be affected.
Downtime Expected?
Yes. Can be anything in the range of 6 hours.
Bugs Expected
Plenty

All over the site actually as every part of the software will change. I hope for your cooperation and patience

. Please report bugs in the feedback zone.
Stage 2 and Stage 3 upgrades will be after this.
Pending: Surprise
for the pessimists, without stage 1, the others can't proceed as the code is reused.