Difference between Forum and Blog
Table of Contents
Key Difference: Forums or an Internet Forum is a message board that is online placed by a company, a website or a non-profit organization. A blog is more of a personal page, where it belongs to a single person or a small group.
With the advance in technology almost everyone is online to express their feelings. Internet has become the basic need for today’s people, where everything can be done online. A bunch of tools have been developed in order to allow people to express their views and opinions online. Prior to these tools, it was difficult for people to reach other people with similar tastes, likes and dislikes as during that time, people would have to create a website using programming language and then add content on that website. Programming language such as Java, C++ is not exactly easy for everyone to understand, hence tools such as blogs and forums have become popular.
Forums or an Internet Forum is a message board that is online placed by a company, a website or a non-profit organization. These message boards have the primary purpose of allowing people to hold conversations by posting messages. In order to post these messages, one would have to sign-up with the website and have a leader approve you. Similarly, in many forums the messages must also be approved by a moderator before they can show up on the forum. The conversation starts with one person with a certain level asking a question or asking a person’s views regarding a certain object or topic. The members of the forum can then start commenting and providing their views. The forum is posted in threads, where each comment is a thread. In many forums, a user does not require log-in to read the messages, but will have to log-in if trying to comment on a particular thread. Forums are often niche-specific such as people interested in motorbikes can create a forum regarding motorbikes and get enthusiasts to come and share their views.
A blog is more of a personal page, where it belongs to a single person or a small group. Blogs have a more freedom when it comes to designing and aesthetic appeal to it. Blogs can be either created using a template or from scratch. Blogs is a discussion site, where a person who owns the blog is the moderator or the owner of the page. Set templates are available for any person who wishes to create a blog. Blogs usually has an individual person’s views and thoughts, which can then be commented on by other bloggers that may be following the person. Past 2009, MABs or Multi-author blogs have begun which allows many users to post various different posts simultaneously. Blogs usually display posts in reverse chronological order, where the most recent posts show up first. Blogs can be used for any purpose and does not only cater to a niche market, they can have any person from any stream to comment and view other blogs. Blogs have been served purposes as an online public diary, as well as online brand advertising for many companies.
Both of these tools are used to get in touch with other viewers, including sharing their views and receiving feedback from other people that may have like-minded views. Depending on a person’s needs as well as requirement, they should opt for forums or blogs. However, forums have been decreasing steadily with the rise of more advanced blogging sites. Also, forums do not have the ability to post images or animations, while blogs support text, videos, animations and images.
More differences have been summarized below in a chart by Sue Studios:
Forums | Blogs | |
Main purpose | Creates a discussion on a particular topic by allowing commenting of posts. | Posting or the content is the main purpose, not the commenting. |
Discussion requires many participants | Yes - forums are created for discussion between several people. | No - mainly designed for a single user input. |
Control of content (Authoring of New Topics) | Decentralized, group. All members usually have the ability to create new topics. Allows for more emergent and unpredictable directions that may reflect the group's desires as a whole. | Centralized, personal. New topics being presented by a defined and focused person or small group. |
Focus | More unfocused - many contributors contributing user-generated topics (a wider variety of content) with differing viewpoints. Forums tend to create much more content, and will pull in traffic on topics or phrases that never occurred to you. | More focused as blogs are written and edited by a single author (or a small group). Replies tend to be directed more to the primary author. |
Intent | Group input, decision making, collaboration. Accumulates group input and facilitates collaboration and group decision making. | Personal accounts, news, reflection. Trusted individuals provide accounts of events and information. |
Chronology (order and presentation of topics) | Posting of replies can govern the presentation of the originating topic. Topics with new replies are often presented at the top (but not always). | Most recently posted topics at the top of the page, regardless of new comments. |
Content organization (How topics are archived and organized) | Discussions often presented in multiple places across the online community and are archived independently. The member chooses the appropriate location to post a new topic, depending on subject matter. Creates multiple “front pages”, spreading the presentation of new topics across different locations in the community. | Topics are all presented on the weblog front page and then archived into categories. Each new topic is assigned to a category that is used to organize the topics for future reference. |
Message length | Many short messages. | Used more for posting longer messages. |
Responses | “replies” Participation is explicitly requested by the poster. A discussion is not a discussion without a reply. | “comments” The author does not need further participation to reach a goal - comment if you want. |
Personal connections | Broader look at a larger number of members as they interact with one another in a group setting. | Can allow online community members to develop personal connections with the webloggers relatively quickly. |
Log in | Yes | No |
Registration required | Yes | No |
Communicate directly with other forum members online through private messaging. | Yes | No |
Show who's online at a given time | Yes | No |
Provide statistical info, eg, how many comments posted over what period of time. | Yes | No |
Notification whenever new or updated content is posted | No | Yes |
Pollution Control (off-topic or inappropriate topics (or responses) | Must be managed closely to deal with spam or flames (see definitions below). Not able to turn off replies, but do prevent problems with moderation of each new topic or response. | Can be unspammable or unflame-able by others without loss of primary value. Can turn-off comments. |
Ability to syndicate (republishing content from one site to another) content to anyone who wants to receive it. | No, content is more “private” | Yes, your content can appear on other blogs |
Tools (see definitions below) | Most forums have not integrated tools used in blogs | Ability to read and link weblogs together. They include: Trackback, RSS, Aggregation, Permalinking, Cross linking. |
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