VBulletin Blog Addon
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 
Mike Olbinski | September 12th, 2007 at 7:55 pm #
I have a massive VB forum but have Wordpress as the frontpage blog software.
You mentioned that you could give your forum members a place to journal…how does that work exactly? Do they kind of get their own “blog space” kind of thing, so they have their own blog on there?
Kevin | September 12th, 2007 at 10:02 pm #
Hi Mike,
Yeah thats exactly what it does. It works very similar to the vbjournal hack that was popular at vbulletin.org
You can set permissions so that only certain usergroups etc can post but I have set it so that everyone can have a blog/journal. Also have the latest blogs displayed on the home page so thats encouraging more blogging as well
login at the official forums for vbulletin.com and give it a try
Mike Olbinski | September 12th, 2007 at 10:56 pm #
Wow…I read the features list…this is pretty amazing. I can’t imagine anything more fun for our forum members.
What do you think about having that, plus a main page Wordpress blog? Community blogs and the official blogs I guess.
The cool thing would be to add an RSS widget on the Wordpress frontpage for the last community blogs.
*whistles* this is pretty slick
Kevin | September 12th, 2007 at 11:05 pm #
Yeah it’s well worth the $50.
I think that it would work well. Members like to have an area where they can write about things etc and most will link to it in their signature etc. You will drive the content for the home page but I’m sure that from time to time you will get an idea for a post from one of your member blog entries
Onevereef | November 14th, 2007 at 4:39 pm #
Hello
I’ve just registered at the forum. This is my first message.
Please don’t become angry about me.
Thank you.
Brandon | January 30th, 2008 at 10:19 pm #
I like the new blog and adding to that, the new user profiles. I would like it if the vb dev’s added the ability to edited the blog look like you can on the profiles.
I do hope they add this in one of the updates.
spycrasher | July 15th, 2008 at 8:14 am #
Hi everybody
Just trapped on a little tool to slice website images.
Quick in preparing ready html from simple single-image site design.
Program is rather crappy and cheap (especially comparing to similar function in PhotoShop).
But there is a trick! Just look what books come as a bonus:
Search Engine Optimization: An Hour a Day
Web Design in a Nutshell, 3rd Edition
Webmaster in a Nutshell, 3rd Edition
etc…
I wonder how $270 priced books can be sold for just 20 dollars…
Anyway here’s link: http://www.sliceimage.com/
Hope these books will help you as well.
Regards,
Mark
casinomy | July 15th, 2008 at 5:34 pm #
Всё о казино в сети: свежие новости в мире казино, правила игр, стратегии игр, бесплатные Flash-игры, форум, платёжные системы, производители программного обеспечения для казино, помощь новичкам, словарь терминов, статьи