Create Messaging Board And Forums
Creating messaging forums also known as forums, can help you to create firm community around your website. Once the forums are up and running, your website is more likely to get noticed. Eventually there is only one obstacle: who else will moderate the forums than you? You can assign members to do that but you must be sure that the work is done or you can moderate the forums 24/7.
Anyway, there are two clearly recognizable ways to add forums:
1) Put the forums on your website and keep them as an integrated part of it.
2) Add the forums on another, pre-built site (outsourcing). In this case you are granted with some rights over your forums like design.
Create the Forums on Your Website
Advantages:
1) You have the ultimate power on the forums, you can edit and do anything you want with them.
2) No fear of black-outs or getting the forums shut down.
Disadvantages:
1) You have to install it yourself, it may take some effort, skill and some frustration. You need to install databases too, at least on PHP forums. Luckily, the instructions for installing forums are usually very good so if you have the patience to follow them, everything should be right.
2) If the web host is not the most generous one with its features, your bandwidth and page space can diminish fast.
3) Usually you must have the support for certain scripting languages such as PHP.
Where to Find Manually Installable Forums?
VBulletin
This is a paid forum costing $160 but with all its features, it's very well worth the money.
phpBB
phpBB is very popular option and it's optimized to get easily installed.
Outsource the Forums
Advantages:
1) Easier to start using it, normally only registration is needed.
2) Usually there are no worries about space or bandwidth.
Disadvantages:
1) Naturally you don't have so much control on things as with forums installed on your website.
2) The forums may get shut down for some reasons or there may be black-outs.
3) As said, usually there are no worries about space or bandwidth but there are cases when the bandwidth isn't enough for you or the space starts to run out.
Where to Find Forum Hosting Services?
It is very easy to find them because there are tons of them. Here are some:
ezboard
A free remotely hosted messaging board with many features.
phpBB
Free forum hosting from phpBB, presumably with almost same features as phpBB itself has.