Simplifying Your Machine
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This week, I want to look at a web site called simplemachines.org, which allows people to build their own online community and brand their social media marketing endeavors. The great thing about Simple Machines (SMF) is that it always has been, is now, and will continue to be free. Of course, there are positives and negatives to getting something for free. The positive is that you know that on the other side of your computer there are people making everything happen because they believe in the freedom of the Internet. The downside is that often times when you pay for something you not only pay for the product but you also pay for the customer support and the warranty. For that reason, if you know PHP, SQL, or HTML well enough that you can create a forum through SMF, then I would encourage you to read on. If you don’t know what you’re doing, but you want to create an online community, Ning.com and Tribe.net are alternative websites. You can do many of the same basic things you could do with SMF, in that you can build your own online community, but you have less control of the functionality (think building your own site from scratch compared to building a MySpace page).
There are two versions of SMF to download; though, the creators recommend not downloading version 2.0 on a production site. As many of us know (at least those of you who are PC users) sometimes new versions of a product are released because of too many bugs reported in an earlier version. Users can also download SMF from the Web. If by chance you already use SMF, then there are also downloads for upgrades.
After you download SMF, you are not completely alone to figure it out for yourself. Much like many other open source projects, the creators of SMF took the time to write an online manual. In this manual, you can find topics on downloading, upgrading, and converting to SMF. If you already downloaded SMF, but need a little extra help, there are docs on how to run and moderate a forum. Of course, for those a little more curious about the ins and outs of SMF, they can find out about the latest SMF updates.
For those who can’t find their questions answered in the online manual, SMF has an online forum. Among the many topics, you will find discussions on many of the topics above, as well as discussions about many other features on SMF. Among other topics, those include graphics, templates, tips, and tricks. As is the case with building anything other theme based HTML website or social networking page, there are many themes and what not people can use for free. So, there are plenty of places to report bugs or mark something as unsafe. But don’t worry, because SMF editors do their best to make sure everything is safe for your computer.
After you download SMF, you can customize your forum. You can find all of the themes and modifications (anything else aside from themes) here that you can find in the forum; though, here is where they are all organized into nice categories. The forum is where users can talk about them. In the stats center, you can find the top authors, downloaded mods, and popular mods. You can also find the latest mods added here, as well as its creator and any other pertinent information.
Simple Machines offers many ways for webmasters to enhance their web presence, as well as to communicate with their users. For me, for right now, I think a blog will do; though, in the future, I think this will be a good tool to be able to find out more about my users, what they would like from my site, and what they may not like from my site. Until then. Check out my site—SEO Bridges—and let me know what you think. You can either e-mail me or just comment on my blog. Oh yeah, I just discovered this last week that the Google search engine widget wasn’t working on my site.
Come back next week for a review on another great site that will help you improve your social media marketing endeavors.
Erick
