Blogging Tips

Last month, VBulletin released their first ever official add on, the VBulletin Blog. Retailing at $50 (and $20 every year thereafter), the vbulletin blogging add on is a fantastic addition for forum owners and well worth the price.

WordPress & Textpad bloggers might cringe looking at the screenprint below. I’m the first to admit that it isn’t the best looking blogging script available however it offers vbulletin forum owners what no other blogging script has up until this point, integration with their forum.

The wordpress bridge which was released at VBulletin.org last year worked quite well. It was a bit tricky to set up and it had it’s limitations but it did allow webmasters inegrate their blogging and forum member base. For me, WordPress remains the best blogging script available and VBulletin remains the best forum script however if you are looking to just give your forum members an online diary, this is the plugin for you.

Anyone who added VBJournal to their forum in the last few years will feel right at home. The blog looks very similar and members can post in much the same way. Thankfully, VBulletin have improved upon the success of VBJournal and added many more features including :

• Members have full control over their blogs. They can decide if comments are allowed to be left and they can set up their own categories.
• Bloggers can add their own personal WordPress API key to prevent scam.
• The script integrates perfectly with your forum and there are loads of additional hacks and tweaks available already.
• Trackbacks are not only available, bloggers can decide if they are posted on their blog and they can even delete trackbacks they don’t want (sorry spammers!).

Summary

Compared to WordPress, this blogging add on is low on features and lacks in a lot of areas. However, this add on should not be compared to a dedicated blogging script in my opinion. If you are looking to give your forum members a journal then I strongly encourage you to set $50 to the side as this is one of the best VBulletin hacks I have applied. The members in my poker forum are loving it!

If you have any problems installing or modifying the script please let me know and I’ll do my best to help