Home » Blog » Posts By Mike W.

Ugly Forum Software Resembles Yahoo In 1996 (LOL!)

Posted on May 5, 2014 by Mike W.

When a user lands on the main page of a forum he or she wants to know what’s hot right now. That’s why we are baffled by forum platforms that insist on showing a list of sub-forums instead. This hierarchical, … Read More >

Posted in Forum Architecture & Design | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Forum Software That Supports Mobile Devices And Creates Habits

Posted on May 2, 2014 by Mike W.

In this day and age when 50% of forum traffic comes from users on mobile phones or tablets, every forum should have a fancy icon that users can add to the home screen on their phone. Kind of like a … Read More >

Posted in Forum Architecture & Design | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Does A “Daily Digest” Email Make Sense For Forum Communities?

Posted on April 28, 2014 by Mike W.

As a follow up to Thursday’s post about forums and email alerts, we offer some thoughts on the practice of sending “daily digests” that summarize content from your forum from the previous day. On the plus side, daily alerts are … Read More >

Posted in Marketing Your Forum | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Your Forum Community And Two Kinds Of Email Alerts

Posted on April 24, 2014 by Mike W.

Email alerts from forum communities come in different shapes and sizes. Or to put it more accurately, email alerts can be short bursts that are sent instantly or they can be a bit longer and contain a summary of hot … Read More >

Posted in Misc. Forum Discussion | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Three Embarrassing Things About Legacy Forums

Posted on April 18, 2014 by Mike W.

Most won’t admit it, but many site owners are embarrassed by the image projected by their community platform. We can’t count how many times we’ve seen a beautifully designed site with an ugly forum. While working hard to correct this … Read More >

Posted in Forum Architecture & Design | Tagged | Leave a comment

Why Some Timestamps Are More Unsightly Than Tramp Stamps

Posted on April 13, 2014 by Mike W.

One puzzling aspect of certain legacy forum platforms is their use of “verbose” timestamps. Often times the landing page for the legacy platform shows the actual date and time of the last post for each category. Or when viewing a … Read More >

Posted in Forum Architecture & Design | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Forum Communities And The Magic Number

Posted on April 8, 2014 by Mike W.

GORE-TEX, the maker of water resistant jackets and outerwear, famously caps the number of employees per factory at 150, even if that means building two factories right next door. The company adopted this policy because they discovered that when the … Read More >

Posted in Misc. Forum Discussion | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Community Building: Knocking Down Silos And Connecting Fragments

Posted on April 6, 2014 by Mike W.

People within the same organization tend to face similar problems but may not know the best method to resolve such problems or how similar problems were resolved in the past. Chances are that an employee in one department knows how … Read More >

Posted in Misc. Forum Discussion | Tagged | Leave a comment

Why Site Owners Look To Ninja Post #FOMO #Fun

Posted on March 26, 2014 by Mike W.

If there was one similarity shared by our clients it would probably be that they used to suffer from FOMO (that is, the fear of missing out) in one way or another. Site owners feared missing out on an opportunity … Read More >

Posted in Why Ninja Post | Leave a comment

What Happens After I Place My Order?

Posted on March 24, 2014 by Mike W.

One of the most popular questions we get from new clients is, “What happens after I place my order?” Great question because most platforms give you a zip file to download and install and host yourself or an ugly looking … Read More >

Posted in Misc. Forum Discussion | Tagged , | Leave a comment