Forums and Ning

Online forums seem like a great way to draw people together, for example, as a medium for "conversations" about the books people have enjoyed. It's like an interactive book review which could draw out the different aspects of the book and occur over a period of time. Alternatively the forum could be used for a more instantaneous or "live" chat following a seminar, providing a more informal discussion with an author or presenter and allowing a greater number of people to participate.

There is a range of software available to run forums with options for downloading and hosting the forum yourself or having it hosted by a third party. Wikipedia has tables providing a comparison of a number of different software options and sites based on factors such as price, threading, whether or not the user can select the theme and whether images can be included. Another option is to use a site such as Ning which provides not just forums but a whole social networking site including chat. There is a Library 2.0 site that has been set up on Ning. It's worth having a look at this site. I haven't tried setting up an "online community" on there yet but think it would be really interesting to try.