inluminent

An old friend (former boss of mine, actually) asked me for some advice on web-based discussion software. At first, my friend just asked a simple question:

“Can you recommend some sort of web-based software that I can use for online discussions?”

I’m sure that you’ll agree that that’s a pretty open-ended question, so, before I started pointing him at things like phpBB, UBB, slash, phpnuke, or anything else out there, I asked a few more questions, and narrowed down the basics of a list to start with in his requirements request.

It turns out he’s really looking for a piece of software that will help facilitate the delivery of news and discussion of that news to a local group of people in a community. (Think school-board meeting minutes and the discussion of those minutes, as one possible example.)

We discussed a few more requirements, and I ended up recommending TypePad to him as a starting point in his quest for the perfect solution to a yet undefined need. I haven’t thought of recommending weblog software to anyone yet (and maybe the right people just aren’t asking me) but, as I started analyzing the needs that were being described, the weblog format started making sense.

Any public organization really probably could use the weblog format to make public it’s meeting notes, diagrams and graphics, as well as solicit feedback and faciliate discussion for those interested, but unable to attend public meetings (think: interested parents have to work when school board meetings happen more times than not). I know this isn’t neccessarily a revolutionary thought, but with the extremely low barrier to entry now that TypePad is a shipping solution, I think I’ll end of recommending the weblog format to people more and more… It’s obviously not a million dollar solution, but it’s got the right price-tag on it for organizations that don’t have huge IT/web budgets… and the format isn’t all that different than a printed newsletter, but has so many more benefits… And because there aren’t any technical requirements for setting up a TypePad site, it’s very easy for a public organization to start using one as a discussion and feedback forum.

I thought about recommending Blogger, but honestly, it doesn’t have anywhere near the feature-set that TypePad has, and that puts TypePad in a completely different ballgame.

End of story (for me at least): My friend is going to sign up for a free TypePad trial sometime soon, and will recommend it as a starting point for the group discussion and feedback model within a public organization.