Web Applications - Community

Blogs

The term “blog” is derived from “Web Log”.  A blog is a website that is generated by the users of the website, who can post message and reply to other messages. Similar to a traditional journal or diary a blog can be used to note day-to-day activates of an individual or business.

Forums

A forum is essentially a website composed of a number of member-written messages. Unlike blogs, forums typically allow anyone to start a new discussion, or reply to an existing discussion. The range of topics discussed on forums is typically wider than that of a blog. Forums differ from chat rooms and instant messaging because forum participants do not have to be online at the same time.

Here are some of the benefits of running a company Blog or Forum:

  • Build a company community, where your staff can share ideas, your managers can share business plans and your company can build an online relationship with your clients. A blog can be used like a virtual whiteboard, to keep track of potential business deals, new product and service ideas, or as a company suggestion box.

  • Search Engine Love them. All of the major search engines give blog/forum website a high ranking due to the very nature of what a blog is… up to date, frequently updated content. The blog or forum can be used as a doorway to your company website, with direct links to products and services that your company has to offer. This can have a very positive impact on the ranking of your website.

  • Effective Tool for outreach and opinion forming. Find out what your clients think of your company, products and or services.

The greatest advantage of blogs and forums is that the user and administrator does not need any technical knowledge to maintain the blog. It is as easy to post (or reply) to a comment, as it is to write an email!

RSS Feeds

RSS is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated digital content, such as blogs, forums, news feeds and or podcasts.

RSS feeds by themselves don’t do much. If you view one in most browsers, you’ll see the raw code. There are a number of applications for RSS feeds; for example, displaying headlines from another website and aggregating RSS feed information from multiple websites.