To Blog or to Moderate?

[Watcher]

Hey guys... here's the deal: I'm thinking about hosting a community on my site to encourage discussions and to generate "sticky customers". It's a real estate based site and currently I'm using (the very hands-off, non-technical) Blogger. I like it cause I can post from anywhere easily be it my mobile phone, google toolbar, Opera browser, etc. I don't like the comment feature and find it limited. I've checked out Movable Type and wonder if it offers perhaps a better solution...
But then I thought... "Why not just use the same stuff as FG?" and host a phpBB forum? Or some other forum? Well, because you have to login and post, don't you? You have to really be online there a lot.... Then again some of you never seem off it.
So here's the question... does anyone offer a setup, complete with all the "post anywhere, anytime" benefits of blogging with the community bulletin boards message handling functions of something like phpBB? For free?

[Watcher]

Exactly what I want to do... there is only one real estate community forum in my area and for that you have to join (ie pay money... like it's for "serious" investors)... but I want to have an open forum with a running theme uniting the posts, a la FG but mine would be homes, property, moving, living, and everything that that entails... it's an open educational forum not trying to sell my services (except subliminally as folks would have to visit my site to access it).
I've seen some great tech boards out there including ncix.com (where buyers review and potential buyers ask q's) and talknotebooks.com (vendor for sager hosts but topics cover and promote the competition, too). I just haven't seen any boards that deal with the intricaies of real estate (except on fool.com but that's very American and Canada does have some differences when it comes to taxes and foreign ownership).
What about other BBs?

[Taro Toporific]

Hey guys... here's the deal: I'm thinking about hosting a community on my site to encourage discussions and to generate "sticky customers". It's a real estate based site...

Blog vs Community for real estate? Hmmm.

For "sticky customers" in real estate, a blog of an answerman, Mr-Real-Estate-Watcher.com, helping folks with their real estate questions would be easier but still tough. You would have to find an audence without Mr-Real-Estate-Watcher having a column in a newspaper to use as a springboard. What is the "hook" you think that with bring them into your site?

To get a "Community" forum started on real estate would be a even harder proposition (but would really generate "sticky customers"). What would be the motivation for real estate customers to post on a forum? Real estate is not like the FG were everyone is motivated by craziness to post. :P

Ok, bear with me here and don't groan it for being so 1999, but you should (re)read the
The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual book online for free for inspiration.

Cluetrain's 95 Theses.
1. Markets are conversations.
2. Markets consist of human beings, not demographic sectors.
3. Conversations among human beings sound human. They are conducted in a human voice.
4. Whether delivering information, opinions, perspectives, dissenting arguments or humorous asides, the human voice is typically open, natural, uncontrived....more blah, blah...

[gkanai]

J, who runs Octopus Dropkick, is using BOTH blogger and PHPBB to do sort of a hybrid thing that is cool. You ought to check it out.
http://www.octopusdropkick.net/

The challenge is that you need to have a basic amount of readership to make a BB worthwhile.

[Watcher]

J, who runs Octopus Dropkick, is using BOTH blogger and PHPBB to do sort of a hybrid thing that is cool. You out to check it out.
http://www.octopusdropkick.net/

Yes!!! That is exactly what I'm looking for. Thank you so much. Now... how did they do that? Blogger has a comments program... but this one links into phpbb... hmmmmmm.

The challenge is that you need to have a basic amount of readership to make a BB worthwhile.

True.. and we all start somewhere. Ultra, tell us a story... what was FG like back in the early days? How'd this thing rise to the top and yield so many devotees? Were there none before it or did this come after Japan Today?

[gkanai]

Here's my advice as someone who's been blogging for 4 years:

- start with a blog. Once you get a lot of readers, then maybe you can support a BB.
- focus your posts on a niche, or at least a general area, or else only your friends will visit
- keep at it. Persistence pays off. So many bloggers quit after a few months, and then disappear. If you aren't serious in the first place, then don't do it.

[kamome]

Ultra, tell us a story... what was FG like back in the early days? How'd this thing rise to the top and yield so many devotees? Were there none before it or did this come after Japan Today?

I can tell you how it was back in the early days. I was the second member of FG in 2002. It was just ultra and me. Ultra posted all of the material (how do you think he got to 5000 posts?). And then word-of-mouth in Tokyo got it going from then on. Japan Today was already there, but it has never been particularly relevant to FG.

Lots of trolls came and went, with some good flame wars to keep the membership amused. Then the FG party happened and some of the regular members got to meet each other face-to-face for the first time. It has just continued to grow since then. I think the donations have helped ultra provide some extra features and keep things running despite such things as Janet Jackson breast crashes.