I recently checked in on the website for Vanilla, a new open source forum script. I was surprised by just how awesome it is. It uses HTML lists and a bit of CSS magic to construct board listings and forum threads instead of the tables that many forum packages still use. That’s just one thing it has going for it, though. It has a lot of nifty features that really set it apart from its competitors.

• You can optionally embed the forum on any web page with a small JavaScript snippet. The software also has a REST API, allowing you to create further integrations into existing websites.
• You can allow forum users to log in with their Facebook, Twitter, Google or OpenID credentials so they don’t have to go through the bothersome registration process. This should help get more people to participate in the discussion.
• If a user views the forum in a mobile browser, a mobile version of the site is automatically served up.
• There is a WordPress plugin to integrate Vanilla and allow it to share usernames and passwords.

Vanilla successfully addresses the two biggest innovations in the modern web: social media and mobile devices. That alone is something that is long overdue in the bulletin board market, which has been a bit stagnant for the last several years.

Forums are cool again. Give Vanilla a look.

Tweetboard is a fun and engaging micro-forum type application for your website. It pulls your Twitter stream in near real-time (max 1 min delay), reformatting tweets into threaded conversations with unlimited nesting. Conversations that spun off the original conversation are also threaded in-line, giving your site visitors full perspective of what’s being discussed.

As people leave their messages on your TweetBoard, they simultaniously add them to their Twitter account, complete with a link back to the conversation, adding a bit of a viral twist.

The service is currently in public alpha. All you have to do is request an invite, which will be approved instantly, then add the JavaScript to your website, just before the </body> tag.

TweetBoard appears as a floating tab on the left-hand side of your website. When clicked, the tab slides outward to reveal the message board.

I’ve tried the service out a little bit, and have been wanting to put it live on Webmaster-Source, if just for a few days to see how people respond to it. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work well with my design. Users with 1024×768 screen resolution or lower would see the green tab floating over my main content, instead of in the extra space to the left of it. I’ve figured out a way to to hide the tab and replace it with an ordinary text link somewhere, but I don’t know how well that would work out.

One problem, however, is spam. Virtually all forums are plagued by spam posts and user registrations, creating hours of tedious work for the administrators.

I just found an SMF mod that implements Akismet for the SMF system: SMF-Akismet.

If only I’d found it a year ago, when I really needed it!

I will take this opportunity to point you in the direction of the Akismet Development page. If you head over there, you can find libraries for PHP and other languages, as well as plugins for other CMS and forum scripts (like phpBB or Joomla). Akismet can be used nearly anywhere that comment spam is a problem.