What are your thoughts of the blog add-on for forums? Of the forums I visit that have blogs enabled, hardly any members actually use them. What's the trick to get members to use them, and what are some good uses for them?
Since installing vB Blog on my site it's been fairly popular. The forums are obviously still the heart of the site, but my members for example use the blogs to post details about flights they've made or addons they're developing for the simulator. Many times the forums get clogged with question related topics, so the blogs have given them another source to express what ever it is they want to share. Our moderators have even used the blogs to post things like "A day in the life of a moderator". They tend to vary so much that it's got interesting to see the variety of blog entries. I'm certain the success of the blogs on my site was in no small part due to how active it is on a daily basis, but I think any site with members can have success with the addition of blogs if you promote it right. Let the members know you've added it and get things rolling yourself. Sometimes people won't use it because they don't fully understand it. Giving them as many entries in your own blog as you can will give them that example. Just my 2 cents, hope it helps.
I offered to install the blogs mod for my most active forum, but the members turned out to be rather vehemently against it. Dunno why, maybe they just didn't want change. I did install it on my petite fashion site in hopes the ladies would keep track of their clothing finds/outfit of the day, but hardly anyone uses it. I imagine that the people most inclined to chronicle their lives for others to read probably already have their own blogs, and see little value in maintaining one on someone else's site.
I have the blog as a perk for the paid subscribers on the forum. Some use it more than others. I've recently started using it more to keep track of my personal thoughts. I like it, but it's something that can easily be forgotten.
Only installed blog addon on one of my forums - rarely used by other than me and 2 other members out of 3800+ members LOL
I asked my member's here: Blogs: If we had them would you use them? - Our DJ Talk - DJ Help and Resources Chat! (Open to the public) and got the answers I expected. Most said no and only a couple said yes. When I upgrade that site to the suite I'll enable blogs but doubt it will be very popular. From the opinions I've read around the net a majority regular 'non-net addict' older folks seem to think blogs are something for kids to waste time with. I'm not sure the mashup of blogs and forums is one that fits all to well together. From an administrators stand point, you want your content on the forums and not tucked out of the way on a blog. You also have the issue of policing content, the blogs should follow the same terms of service as the rest of your board but on the other hand blogs are more personal and typically more lenient in content posted; How do you deal with that when blogs are more of a broadcast medium? Sure I can see blogs having their place like a few members on my board do a weight loss thing every winter but Social groups would probably work better for something like that.
On the one site I have the blogs it's more used like a journal. Members post for updates, license agreements, and gp for referals to the topics posted in the forums.
I like them on forums. Okay, that's mainly because I use them for my own blog more than anything, very few of the other members end up writing any blog entries.
I personally find these type of addons kind of useless. If a person wants to run a blog, they'll usually use a big free service or their own hosting, maintaining a blog on someone's forum is not too much fun. It's not like anyone can see it, just members, and people at forums usually want to just talk about what's on the forum. Blogs just take out more time of your hand and kind of make you feel cluttered with stuff to read.
I can see blogs being a really good thing with the right permissions on a very influential industry-specific forum. Yes, people go to Wordpress or Blogspot or whatever for their free blogs, but what if you could have one at it.com, or movies.com or...
I can see how people on other forums can use them, but I am sure my members don't need them. Our rules are lax enough so people just post about their day anyway so blogs would just be taking away posts from the forum itself.
Try Cyb's Advanced Statistics hack on vb.org, it will display latest blog posts, social group posts, recent forum posts and more.
Blogs are something is rarely requested on my site. When I gave my members the choice between a links directory or a blog, they picked the link directory. even if I did install a blog, I doubt anyone would really use it. From what I see on blog spot, most of the blogs are abandoned after a few months anyway.
