Blogoforum - What is Blogoforum

What Blogoforum is? What is it now, and what it can be in the future?

Let's suppose somebody would create a universal discussion place to exchange information about everything. What would she end up with? Something like Google or Yahoo groups, or forum like MySpace forums which has 20+ sub-forums with sub-sub-forums and so on.

Can we get something more?

Blogoforum takes new approach. How to navigate through a sea of messages about anything? How to categorize messages properly and identify spam? How to give the power from moderators to users? How to find what's important or interesting? How to find an expert on a topic of your interest? Moreover, how to move the discussion smoothly from one topic to another, as it happens in real life, while keeping interested person on topic of her interest?

The place we build here is aimed to solve this. Ideally, Blogoforum will be the new, better global knowledge exchange tool about everything. Now, it differs from today's forums radically, if not revolutionary.

You will find no fixed forum hierarchy at Blogoforum. Did you ever experience frustration about which sub-sub-forum to post your message in? No longer. No more wrong sub-forums. Blogoforum posters use message keywords to categorize messages. Blogoforum has "forums" built around each keyword or set of keywords. To find messages of your interest, navigate Blogoforum using keywords of your interest. Browse messages about web 2.0, or narrow your search to web 2.0 idea. While writing the message, give it keywords you think are appropriate. Blogoforum will arrange a forum around each of your keywords, so you can get an instant discussion place around any thing of your interest, narrowing it down as you wish, using for example product or location name or something else. Blogoforum takes care your post to be noticed by people using Google or other search engines to find info on the same topic.

Ever wanted to put the message into more than one sub-forum? Do you think it would be natural to put your story about traveling to California beaches to forums about "surf", "california", "ocean", "travel", "photo" and "car"? You can assign more than one keyword to your message.

Moreover, who do you think should decide which category to put the message into? Should it be the message author, or moderator, or maybe you? Blogoforum think it's you. Now if you spotted the message within category you do not think are appropriate - give it keywords you think are correct. Say spam goodbye.


As somebody writes more on some topics, Blogoforum will show her messages under her blog, her topics growing in size under her blog, and her name growing under those topics. This way, you can identify experts on topics of your interest here, or grow a reputation of an expert yourself.

Discussion threads. Ever seen long multiple-page thread where valuable information is buried somewhere deeply inside, while the discussion jumps from one topic to another confusing newcomers and giving work to moderators?

Time to change it. You will find no common discussion threads here at Blogoforum. Instead, any message is potential discussion-starter. Blogoforum will try to recognize thread-like patterns and show replies in a list or tree-like structure. Naturally, someone's post may raise new questions or different topics to discuss, so you are allowed to assign your own set of keywords to your reply, thereby starting a new discussion. This experimental system still has to prove itself. What do you think on the idea?

Blogoforum is work in progress. Blogoforum's future is defined by you, people who use it to ask something or get some valuable info. If you miss some feature or have a thought of some improvement - write about it, and it likely your suggestion will be implemented and you will see it live. Upcoming features may include "popular messages" and "discussion groups" aimed to people who miss old sub-sub-forum hierarchy.

Now who are the people who build Blogoforum? It is you, people who post on Blogoforum on topics of your interest, and Denis Krukovsky, the guy who knows a bit about programming, but makes English typos sometimes, which is natural since his mother language is Ukrainian. One of things why he started Blogoforum actually was because he wanted to respect replies of his readers and treat them as valuable and potential discussion starters.

Thanks to Shrikant Joshi (his Blogoforum blog), Lindsay Donaghe (Lindsay's suggestion), Jason Brinkle (Jason's Blogoforum), Zef Hemel (Zef on Blogoforum), Maciej Blizinski (his Blogoforum), Nicolas Noben (Nicolas on Blogoforum), and all other people who provide valuable suggestions, tell friends about Blogoforum, or simply read what happens here!


You can read previous "about Blogoforum" post if you are interested.