"Who Needs A Forum Anyway" Guest Post by Mr. Lindstrom

My dear hubby, the fabulous Mr. Lindstrom, is our Guest Poster today. I do love to read anything he writes. He manages to entertain me constantly....over the last 13 years, thank you very much! :) So, without any further ado......

Some of you may be saying to yourselves “Self—I sure would like to win $100, but just what exactly is a ‘forum’ fer anyhoo?”.  Well—I’ll tell you.  I am of the opinion that there are nowhere near enough social networking avenues available to surfers of the interweb, so I thought I’d create another one.  Yeah, not really. 

I admit I rarely, if ever, consult Wikipedia—but this is their definition of an ‘internet forum’:

“An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages.  They differ from chat rooms in that messages are at least temporarily archived.”

So—it’s a ‘site’ where people can hold ‘conversations’ which are ‘archived’.  How could this possibly be of use to you?  After all—you already have accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Linked In, Ning, Tagged, Classmates, Hi5, Myyearbook, Meetup, Bebo, Mylife, Friendster, Myheritage, Multiply, Orkut, Nerdcentral, Webgang, and Mygeekclub, with a dozen or more different gmail addresses just to keep things easy and organized. 

Two words:  ‘Niche’, and ‘Archived’.

Niche:  ‘A situation or activity specially suited to a person's interests, abilities, or nature.’

Archive:  ‘An extensive record or collection of data’.

Remember that life-changing inspirational video about a cat with six legs that your bestest friend from high school, that you didn’t remember existed until you accepted his friend request and went through all of his pictures, posted on Facebook a month ago?  Wanna show it to your real bestest friend?  You may be able to find it in a jiffy, but I’m positive I couldn’t.

How about that High Altitude Green Jello recipe that is TO DIE FOR?  Well, if someone shared it in a ‘niche’ forum somewhere, you could type ‘green jello’ in the search bar and find the recipe, as well as all the riveting discussion about it, in about a half a second.

It’s like hanging out with friends online, but everyone has similar interests, and shares ideas and information that can be searched at any time by anyone for reference.

PERSONAL EXAMPLE(that you can skip if you are easily bored):  About a bajillion years ago I was into off-roading.  I wanted to build an off-road machine, but I had no previous experience in how to do such a thing.  I found an online niche forum about off-roading.  I joined even though there wasn’t much content there yet, because the forum seemed to be about exactly what I was interested in—building your own off-road machine.  I was member number 6, as in the sixth person to join.  The other five people didn’t hesitate to ask questions in the forum, to share their projects in the forum, to post pictures in the forum, to pass along information in the forum.  I built an entire custom off-road machine from the ground up, with no prior knowledge, almost exclusively by taking part in this community of do-it-yourself off-roaders.  As of 8:33 this evening, there are now 174,171 members of this forum, with 2,288 members browsing the forum at this very moment.  When I joined there were about 4 or 5 subforums.  Now there are 82.  Without this forum it would have been ridiculously difficult for me to build my off-road machine—but it took a leap of faith at first just to join.      

SO—what exactly is the niche that is YourLifeUncommon?  I can’t really say that I know.  Not that I’ve spent weeks thinking about it, but I can’t really put YLU into words.  The truth is, if you’ve read more than about five YLU blog posts(uhhh…not counting this one), you probably have a pretty good idea what it’s about.  THIS IS THE NICHE OF THE YLU FORUM.

Homemaking doesn’t really cover it.  Self-improvement is a little too broad.  Entertainment certainly doesn’t explain it(until now anyway).  As the niche that is YLU continues to be better defined, the YLU Forums will grow right along with it, with new, more specific forums added as necessary. 

Since the YLU Forums are new, the archive of discussion is fairly small.  Okay, really small.  This is because the ‘archive’ of information comes from its members, and you’re all a little timid about sharing your vast pool of knowledge.  I don’t blame you.  BUT—if the YLU Forum is going to help anyone—you need to get over yourself.  You KNOW you have something of value to contribute.  SOMEONE out there has some amazing recipes they want to share.  At least ONE of you has sewed vinyl before, and could certainly be of assistance in the ‘Crafting’ forum(like, right away actually—go HERE).  Forum registration is FREE, but your contribution  is invaluable—‘having  great value that is impossible to calculate’.

Besides, if you don’t go join right now, not only will you miss an opportunity to win $100(out of my own pocket I might add), but I will continue to post on YLU daily with unbearable quantities of ‘these’ ‘around’ ‘every’ ‘word’.

Don’t have anything you want to share right now?  FINE—anything goes in the ‘General Discussion’ forum(although ‘anything’ will have to adhere to a PG-13 rating).  Talk about the weather—whatever.  The first step to joining or forming a community is getting to know each other.  We all have something in common or you wouldn't be reading this right now. 

So—enough about me.  Let’s hear about you.  All you have to do is click HERE.       

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