344 Part III: Designing Sites for Long-Term Sucess
344 Part III: Designing Sites for Long-Term Sucess Table 13-3: Site Types that Can Benefit from Discussion forums Site Type Forum Use Gaming site Users share game strategies and game cracks to help them solve specific issues in their playing, and find other gamers to challenge. Gaming forums are some of the most actively used on the web. Software development company site Support forums can be an excellent means of getting fast, helpful support for technical and other problems related to software. These forums can be public, allowing anyone to post their problems and responses in a communal fashion, or they can be restricted. Restricted forums would be for posting technical problems and awaiting a designated moderator s answer. Some companies use both options at the same time, largely because community support tends to be faster and sometimes even more reliable. Health support group site Community forums that allow people to share their health-related challenges can be an extremely helpful and humanitarian offering, allowing people who might otherwise be unable to attend live support groups to find information and get help. The American Cancer Society and Alcoholics Anonymous are two organization examples that offer support forums to extend their message and to provide a real service via the forum support. Job search site Forums on a job search site can be helpful for jobseekers to exchange strategies, successes, and experiences with various companies. Special interest web sites There are thousands of special interest groups. There are coin collectors, art collectors, and wine collectors. There are senior knitters, male knitters, and even gay knitting groups. If you can think of an interest, certainly there are interesting people pursuing that interest online. A wine site can offer forums for its visitors to discuss wines, and a site specializing in excellent quality and choice wool and supplies could benefit from a forum on their site, helping develop brand loyalty as well as community strength. forum: for feedback, customer service support, special interests, and support group meetings (see Figure 13-12). note A resurgence of interest in Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is occurring. IRC is an extremely useful, multiplatform Internet protocol that has been around longer than the web. Depending upon the software you use to access it, it can be extremely easy to use and is completely free. For more information on IRC including FAQs, beginner s guides, operator guides, and links to useful software, go to http://www.irchelp.org/.
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