I spoke to my mom yesterday and she said that she would like to have a website for the family. I know that there are free sites out there, but I'm not sure if they support the level of complexity she wants. She would like to have a forum, where family members can post message and family members respond. Similar to the BBS forum here on ClutchFans. She would also like a place for my dad to publish news letters. All in all, it sounds familiar to ClutchFans but on a MUCH smaller scale. Has anyone done this? I would love to get some ideas, so I can help her with it while spending time with them during the holidays. Thanks and Merry Christmas. Steve
You could probably just as well use a yahoo group... I believe it's free, and you can password it to keep out the general public...
you can try: http://www.phpbb.com/ or http://www.vbulletin.com/ (that's what this board is from) A LOT of websites use phpbb.
I think vBulletin is more reliable than phpbb. Of course, phpbb is free, so it is a pretty darn good product for a freeware. If you are a very good coder, you may also want to check out Drupal. It is suppose to have awesome community building tools. If you just want a forum, vBulletin is probably a good choice. Maybe you can also install Movable Type so your family has have a collaborative blog.
For a family website you might thing about using a blog type software like WordPress, I think forum softwares can scare some of the non-technical family members away while people can simply "reply" or post updates of their own on a blog.
