Private Label Forums?

[digitalv]

I'd like to add a topic-specific forum to my site, but forums are one of those tricky things that are hard to get going. So the question is if any of you know if there are any companies that offer private label message boards where the boards are "shared" on a bunch of different sites and they already have subscribers etc.?

[Receptional Andy]

I don't know of anyone doing this, although it sounds like a good idea to me ;)

Other than iframes or scraping I imagine setting this up would be a bit of a technical nightmare though!

[digitalv]

I don't know of anyone doing this, although it sounds like a good idea to me ;)

Other than iframes or scraping I imagine setting this up would be a bit of a technical nightmare though!

It wouldn't be difficult to do. Off the top of my head there are two ways I could think of. The first would be XML - make the entire forum and all commands accessible via XML, and then anyone could build their own front-end in ASP, PHP, T-SQL, Perl, whatever they're comfortable with.

Or the other alternative, use a multiple configuration setup based on the hostname. Ie; Forum Name, URL, etc. would all be dynamic variables. All a user would have to do is direct "forum.example.com" to the forum-host's site, and their database would do the rest.

The key is going to be finding someone who would be both willing to do this AND has the forum traffic to justify such a venture. If I had a strong forum with a variety of topics, I'd do it.

[jtara]

Or the other alternative, use a multiple configuration setup based on the hostname. Ie; Forum Name, URL, etc. would all be dynamic variables. All a user would have to do is direct "forum.example.com" to the forum-host's site, and their database would do the rest.

This is commonly done for affiliate shopping sites. Check out same for ideas.