Xanga.com, a pioneering and leading weblog community has just launched social networking features where users can link up with other users. Users of the service were always able to connect by subscribing to each other's blogs within the service. Now, they can connect directly.

I met John Hiler, the man behind Xanga, almost a year ago. What I learned from my visit with John is that he's not the kind of guy that seeks attention or the limelight. Although Xanga is a thriving blog community, they do zero PR and don't interact much with bloggers outside of their community. It's a choice that you can't necessarily argue with - as they've been very successful doing what they are doing.

Anyways, I knew that they were launching myspace/friendster/linkedin-like capabilities after my visit with John. And I've had to bite my toungue this whole time. Well, here's what a new profile looks like - complete with picture friend lists and more.

Although Xanga's traffic has been steadily climbing, I fully expect that this will bring xanga into myspace territory.