A blog/message board hybrid?

September 5, 2006 2:26 PM

Which software acts like a blog/message board hybrid?

So one problem that I see with blogs is that comments on old blog posts don't get read by site browsers. I think the problem would easily be solved by blog software that has a button like "view new comments" or something like that. (No RSS solutions please.)

I guess another alternative would be to have a message board with only one authorized author. But then the message board would need a plugin to make it look more bloglike.

Any suggested blog software with appropriate plugin? Or message board with appropriate plugin? Or whatever you might call it that somebody else has already thought of?

It seems to me that I can't be the first person who has thought of this, but I guess the assumption is that old blog posts quickly lose their time relevance.

posted by mrkohrea to computers & internet (10 comments total)

I think Vanilla can do this...
posted by SpecialK at 2:33 PM on September 5, 2006

You might be interested in finding out what software powers The Daily WTF, because he is clearly using some kind of forum software under the hood.
posted by knave at 2:48 PM on September 5, 2006

Blogware does this I think. I've seen Blogware-based blogs that have a list of recent comments up the side. (specifically, http://accordionguy.blogware.com/)
posted by GuyZero at 2:54 PM on September 5, 2006

ExpressionEngine intergrates it's blog and message board to an extent.

However, it'll cost ya ($100 for personal licences, $250 for commercial PLUS $99 for forum module.)

An example of it in action can be found on their site (click the continue button in the first forum post to be taken to the blog).
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:56 PM on September 5, 2006

Vanilla just posted info on combining it and Wordpress.
posted by JakeWalker at 3:39 PM on September 5, 2006

Movable Type (disclaimer, i work with the team) can easily let you add a "most recent comments" widget to your sidebar, or if you're hell-bent on having a blog that looks like a forum, there's a template for that as well.
posted by anildash at 4:00 PM on September 5, 2006

Both of the biggies, Movable Type and Wordpress, can show recent comments on the front page or wherever you want. In MT, it's really just a matter of dropping in the right template code; in WP, I believe there are plugins for this (you could also write the appropriate WP tags into your theme, but that seems like more fooling around).
posted by adamrice at 4:03 PM on September 5, 2006

We use Vanilla for our blog/forum/profile site.
posted by jeanmari at 5:16 PM on September 5, 2006

Scoop?
posted by brownpau at 6:06 PM on September 5, 2006

Mefi Clones.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 7:27 PM on September 5, 2006