Has anyone used Forums on their (niche) blogs? How good is the user interaction?
I am thinking about including a forum (via Google groups) in my blog. But I am not sure if a forum will be useful/effective. Also, I am not sure what kind of problems I might face (spam, etc). So, if anyone has used forums in your blogs, please share your experience...
@ Destination Infinity If the forum succeeds, then don't you think that transitioning would be difficult. Moreover since it's embedded forum, you are not going to receive any seo benefits.
Why don't you create a subdomain for your blog forum.XXX.com and host a forum there. ( I think it is possible with blogger blog - not very sure ) Style the forum so that the look and feel matches with that of your blog. Put a link to the forum on your blog and vice versa.
a xxx forum? did you really mean it Rajni?
ok i trust your clear intention Rajni...
i can't discuss all these sweet smelling shitts with a 19 yr old boy... sorry Rajni
I have seen people create sub-domains for blogger blogs with custom-domains. So, I guess it should be possible to host the forum externally and redirect blog users, there. For example, we can host our forum remotely (for free) on proboards.com and redirect a page to its URL. However, they run ads and charge for removing the ads and using our own custom URL for the forum.
Not having exposure to search engines is a definite disadvantage. But right now, I am thinking of ways to make it easier for people to start using the forum. The advantage with google groups is, people can join the forum with their google ID and instantly start using the forum. There is no another username/password to remember. The moderation options with google groups seem to be quite comprehensive, so in time, I can make the policies slightly stricter.
But I intend this experience to be a test-run. If it is successful, we can always migrate to a better system or start a new forum. I guess interested users will migrate anyway. But I first need to know if a forum works for my blog or not...
However, they run ads and charge for removing the ads and using our own custom URL for the forum.
But you already have hosting in which you have your wordpress blog. So, you will incur no additional cost if you set it up on that hosting.
But I first need to know if a forum works for my blog or not...
Yes, that's the main thing. 
@Ranjit: Thanks, that's a good idea. Since I also have self-hosted blogs in WP, I guess I can set-up an open-source forum software in my current host. Only issue is the domain/sub-domain will be different as the blogger domain is controlled by a different host. But that should still be better than a third-party URL.
But I guess I will do this after I determine whether forum works in my blog or not... Thanks for the input.
OK using it on blogger will be waste of your time I would suggest not to use it.
You can use it but it does not performs that good for everyone.You can try bb press forums.And you can get members from other forums or indiblogger. 
This site where I want to use the forum is on blogspot, so I am not sure if I can use bb press. Right now, I have found a simple solution using embeddable google groups platform... If the forum clicks, then I might go with something better...
Rubbish it is. I had a forum at marriagebook and my experience is very bad
Thanks for your feedback... Eventually I might come to the same conclusion, as well :) But I would like to try it for some time...
Wait till these sex starved people throng at your forum dude, I doubt they gonna kick you out of admin and take full control of your space.
If you want to use a forum on Wordpress, check bbPress. It is the same one used by BlogAdda.
Using bbPress makes the content indexable.
(Note: I haven't tried it )
The main challenge would be getting members to your forum. Having a lot of friends who are ready to help you by starting discussions / posting Q and A etc would be a good thing.
Sorry for the confusion. BlogAdda uses Vanilla.
... Not sure if Vanilla can be a stand alone forum like bbPress.
I installed the forum in my blogspot blog, so WP plugins don't help here. Right now the Google groups forum I have installed offers a good test-run. Lets see if ppl are interested to participate... Q&A is a good idea, but I guess I need good traffic for that.
Unless you have good enough, say about 100 odd organic regular user, site engadgement wont be happening..
They say to add forum if comments are out growing the post page .. Success of forum depends on more and more organic user 
what is organic user?
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