Boston.com is trying to become more neighborly with its readers through a series of social networking initiatives designed to enhance its local presence.

The Web site — the online arm of The Boston Globe — embarked on a three-pronged approach, embracing publishing, aggregating and convening, said Bob Kempf, vice president of product.

“What has been a strength of Boston.com from the beginning has been our ability to serve the originally produced content at The Globe with the original Web production of the site,” he said. “We don’t consider that to be everything we do, but that is just one piece, an important piece to which the other elements can react.”

To bolster its role as a convener, the Web site, last month upgraded its forum and commenting capabilities for articles, using software from Waltham, Mass.-based developer Awareness.

Boston.com already used Awareness’ software to enable photo uploading, so it’s tethering the new blogging and commenting features around user profiles to enable readers to easily track a user’s participation.

Boston.com is also segmenting content to create vertical Web sites targeted toward specific interest groups.

On the site is: BoMoms, a page containing articles and forums aimed at young mothers in the Boston area.

“It is populated largely by forums and by a community of users posting a lot of comments on stories that are posted there,” Kempf said.