What's The Difference? Blog/forum

[owatagal]

I need to know. It's been bugging me for months. What's the difference between a blog and a forum?

 

I've seen people use blogging software to create what is something more like a forum, and people use forum software for what is really just a personal blog. Either way you're starting a topic within a category (or sub/forum if you like) and people are replying to it. Both blog and forum owners can control how many people can get membership and posting rights (at least with the more complex software). From a coding perspective, they're doing similar things with databases and organizing information... I'm starting to think a blog is just a simplified forum. Am I crazy?

[TCH-Rob]

You are not crazy. While I would not use one in place of the other they can perform many of the same functions on a basic level.

[owatagal]

That's sort of what I was thinking. I needed a forum for a website and didn't want to deal with all the updates the major names were pushing out at the time--I ended up stripping my blog code to its core functions and then adding on a few features to make it more friendly to multiple users. I just wasn't expecting it to be that similar. But I also wouldn't have done that if the forum in question was ever going to be popular.