Comments on: Discussion Forums – An Oft-Overlooked Element of Social Media

By: carlosa

carlosa — Sun, 24 May 2009 06:59:28 +0000

I have a popular satire newspaper site Banana News(www.bananaws.com). It works for entertaining
readers but I cannot get commentary rolling because people either just praise the site(which would be boring for readers) or make really poor off beat comments
in trying to be clever.

I guess I learned you must be serious to get funny comments but if you start out with humor yourself -you can overwhelm readers too much for them to comment in a way that would entertain other readers.

I am also finding some humor becomes a very private matter with some readers
where they only want you to see your comment.

Dont ask me why but very interesting
.

By: carlosa

carlosa — Sat, 23 May 2009 23:59:28 +0000

By: carlosa

carlosa — Sat, 23 May 2009 23:59:28 +0000

By: Old School Social Media Part II: Podcasts | Social Media Explorer

Old School Social Media Part II: Podcasts | Social Media Explorer — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 10:01:41 +0000

[...] while back, I threw out the idea that message boards are the unsexy, old school workhorses of social [...]

By: Josh Peters

Josh Peters — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 03:16:42 +0000

Sure, UserPlane is my favorite of the ones I have looked at and is what I am trying to get my work to deploy. The others all have benefits that will either enhance or just get in your way depending on how you intend to use the forum.

Tangler lets you use real time discussion and has features that make it easy to embed discussions into your blog. Lefora has many of the features that Tangler has but it's also got the ability to add widgets to the forums and make your discussion more of an "immersive" experience. PhpBB and Vanilla are both very "standard" forums but they have a plethora of add-ons so you can fully customize your forums to suit your needs.

UserPlane (Boards is the actual product name) is my favorite because it's clean, it's got some great features like real time updates so you can see people typing in their messages and watch the conversation evolve right in front of you and it helps keep from having 33 of the same post show up, you can include videos and images in your posts, has some really awesome IM features, fully customizable CSS so you can get it to match your site, and if you already have a vBulletin board or similar forum then you can just transfer all your user data and conversations over.

I'm sure there are more out there and that they have great features but for a very professional look and feel I would nominate UserPlane as the winner, if you are doing like a gaming or entertainment forum (where the forum is the focus or a very large part of the site) I would say Lefora so you could add all of the crazy widgets and just make the whole page an experience.

By: Josh Peters

Josh Peters — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 03:16:42 +0000

By: JasonFalls

JasonFalls — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 11:59:40 +0000

Agreed. Playing appropriately there is a challenge. Hopefully discussions like this will enlighten folks with companies and brands. Appreciate the comment.

By: JasonFalls

JasonFalls — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 11:59:40 +0000

Agreed. Playing appropriately there is a challenge. Hopefully discussions like this will enlighten folks with companies and brands. Appreciate the comment.

By: JasonFalls

JasonFalls — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 11:58:43 +0000

Thanks Josh. We've heard of a few of those, but appreciate the listing. Would love to know if there are any that stand out in your mind.

By: JasonFalls

JasonFalls — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 11:58:43 +0000

Thanks Josh. We've heard of a few of those, but appreciate the listing. Would love to know if there are any that stand out in your mind.

By: Josh Peters

Josh Peters — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 01:07:22 +0000

“Because theyâ€™ve been around a long time, they lack the â€sexyness factorâ€”
There are many companies out there trying to fix that and they are adding a lot of the newer social media tools into tired old forums and give them an injection of that “sexiness factor”. UserPlane, Tangler, Lefora, ForumUp, Sparklit, PhpBB, vBulletin, Vanilla, and even solutions like Grouply are making headway with revamping one of the original forms of digital social media.