Launch.forum Feature Overview - What's Next?

If you watched the Launch.forum intro video and learned about "Change It Where You See It", most of you will agree that LF is easiest to use forum/community/discussion board software out there... whatever way you prefer to describe it. When it comes to setting up a forum, we were obsessive about making it easy, fast, and fun!

Hold on a second! There is more to forums than just getting set up! You still want powerful features. To us... power isn't defined by the number of features. It's defined by how useful and easy to use the most important features are designed. =)

Power = How (a) useful and (b) easy the most important features are designed
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Here are some of the things you can anticipate coming to Launch.forum:

Launch.pages - When people see Launch.forum for the first time, many of them tell us: "Hey, this could replace my whole website". With Launch.pages, we'll make it even easier to do just that. Using LF's own "Change It Where You See It" approach, we'll make it easier than ever to not only have a community, but to let Launch.forum build your entire website. How? Just add new Launch.pages.

Launch.themes - The Launch.forum default template is designed to be light and clean, a blank palette to get you started building and customizing your forum as you desire. However, we know that the world of forums is filled with all kinds of different color choices. So our basic LF themes will ensure that you can switch from your default LF theme to one of the pre-selected color options. Then you can start customizing it further with your own logo and background. Note: More advanced changes to the look and feel will be handled by Launch.apps with custom designed themes or skins.

Launch.apps - Think 1-click instant install of apps (aka plugins) and themes directly within your Launch.forum. No FTP, no coding, no geeky stuff whatsoever required. LF's engine will be app ready for the best of the best devs in the forum world to create some awesome new features and tools! Your imagination is the only limit. Apple ended the era of difficult to find & install apps. We'll follow their playbook. In a time when your toaster will soon have apps... you just gotta have apps!

Launch.api - Apps are one thing. An API opens up your Launch.forum so that your data can be pulled into other tools and used for whatever you want.

Launch.hits - There are all kinds of stats programs out there like Google Analytics that will tell you how many people are visiting your website or forum (plus tons of other data). We know the most value info is how any of your individual LF pages are performing including search engine hits from Google and other engines. So we'll make sure you know how many hits you're getting, where they are coming from, and which search keywords are being used on each topic page with just a click or two.

Launch.sorters - Your "Activity" stream is the center of what's happening on your forum. However, Launch.forum supports all kinds of rich media such as photos, videos, and files. If you want to focus on only topics with photos or videos, you can. We'll give you lots of sorting options including top content. Our LF sorters will let you view only the stuff you are most interested in such as topics with videos only, or perhaps just the hottest topics on the forum! LF sorters always let you find what you're looking for quickly!

Launch.likes - A full liking system. "Likes" are here to stay. As much as forums are about expression of ideas, there are times when we want to give thumbs up or thumbs down and move on. Without that capability, we'll end up with topics filled with many 1-liner or thank-you messages that are gracious, but may interrupt the flow of communication. Likes (or dislikes) are also a great way to find the best and the worst content on your forum. Launch.forum will have a liking system built-in for topics and status updates. We have some ideas on how it can be built into our profile pages as well as a reputation system.

Launch.votes - Sites like GetSatisfaction operate on the basic concept of letting users digg, or vote up the stuff they like best. It helps you get feedback and pull ideas in from your community. LF will allow you to create sub-forums that support topic voting capabilities, so you don't have to pay other services to do the same thing at extra cost and another software app to learn and maintain.

Launch.groups - Launch.forum includes admins, moderators, members, and guests. However, in the forum world, many forums like to create user groups that have custom permissions. Imagine a private VIP forum, customers only forum, subscriber group, etc. With Launch.groups, we'll ensure our power admins have the tools they need with the ease of use you can expect from LF.

Launch.targets - Launch.forum uses a layout inspired by Mashable.com. The focus is always on your topics and main content, and your navigation and featured content boxes are neatly organized on the right. We want to give you greater control over what gets displayed on every page. Imagine custom ads, custom featured videos, custom apps set up to display on a single topic page or sub-forum. With our LF targeting options, we'll give admins the power to control what is displayed on every page. It also creates some totally awesome sponsorship opportunities or neat ways to promote your affiliate programs on individual topic pages! Instead of one size fits all, you can target stuff on single high traffic topic pages if you want. Your sponsors will love it! =)

Launch.quotes - Launch.forum will have its own unique method of handling quoting. Traditional forums sometimes have problems with excessive quoting. This means you reply with a quote to a large message, and include the entire message in the quote, when you may intend to respond to only part of it. This disrupts the flow of readability in the topic, so LF's quotes will be an alternative method of supporting quotes without making topics harder to read.

Launch.features - Launch.forum already makes it super easy for you to feature any of your topics to the home or feature page where they can get the most exposure. However, we know that by watching the activity of the community closely, LF can find the coolest stuff for you automatically and feature it in a variety of optimized ways to ensure your users find the absolute coolest stuff to talk about... It also gives them another reason to spend more time on your forum and persuades them from bouncing away when they arrive from the search engines!

Launch.space - Traditional forums have tackled the issue of fluid or fixed layouts. Basically, that means your forum stays the same size on all monitor sizes (fixed) or it will stretch to fill the whole screen (fluid, i.e. a flowing layout). We know that using the whole screen (especially on big monitors) does not necessarily help readability. In fact, it may hurt it as lines of text get longer and longer. Think of newspaper columns. They are short lines to improve the audience's readability as they jump from line to line. So we don't want to just stretch out your topics. Instead we think LF can make better use of the extra space available! Instead of the same content stretched like an elastic band about to snap in two, we want to add stuff to the extra space that improves the user experience!

Launch.pulse - Forums are powered by people. They should feel "alive". Launch.forum will get some click upgrades to ensure that you get the feeling of an active, living, engaging experience. The Launch.pulse system will include activity alerts so that you'll always know what's happening. It's LF's heartbeat... the pulse of the community.

Launch.leaders - The best forums on that Web got that way thanks to the awesome members who put so much of their time into creating great content and an awesome experience. Launch.leaders makes sure that the community knows who they are, and who's moving up the ladder.

Launch.social - Launch.forum includes status updates, the quickest way to let people know what you're doing or just to share cool ideas or links. With Launch.social, LF gets a big upgrade. It'll include privacy options (to give you a Yammer like experience), connections to your social networking accounts like Twitter and Facebook, and some awesome new ways to turn a status update into a more engaging conversation! =)

Launch.follow - Launch.forum was created to be a social.content platform. The focus is on the community and the ideas and topics that get created there. It differs from social networks like Facebook where your grandmother, boss, ex-girlfriend, and best friend from 1st grade (who is now doing hard time) can all co-exist and interact with you in the same space. Most are connected only because they knew you in some capacity at one time or another in your life. Communities are not address books. They are a meeting place of like minded individuals, passionate about the same topics! Launch.follow will let you follow other members in your community, but its goal is different. Knowing who you are influenced by will help LF find the topics of most use to you and build real connections with other community members - the ones you truly connect with on topics important to the community.

Launch.connect - The Web is filled with great complimentary tools. Launch.forum's connect features will allow you to hook your forum up to some of the most useful services on the Web via their APIs. Right now, our Facebook logins feature is enabled by Launch.connect, but there is much more to come.

Launch.ads - We are just getting started with our ad system. LF already makes it super easy to activate an ad from your favorite CPC or affiliate programs (or any type of ad really). However, while we know we covered many of the optimum ad locations for forums, we can do better. We have new ad locations and handling that will help your ads get better exposure without killing the user experience. We think we can "rev" up your ads!

Launch.help - We know "Help Where You Need It" will be a complimentary system to our "Change It Where You See It" idea for settings. We'll be introducing a help mode so you can find out what you need to know in just a click or hover!

Launch.installer - Modern forums that allow you to install them on your own web hosting account have done a good job at simplifying the process. We think Launch.forum can go a step further with an install wizard that makes an installation easy for everyone (not just the techies among us). =)

Launch.mobile - Launch.forum's first step into mobile will be optimizing the forum's display on smartphone browsers. However, the power of iPhone and Android smartphones are growing every day, and part of our strategy for the future is making sure you get a rich LF experience even from your favorite phone.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask. And remember if there's something not on the list you would like to see, let us know. =)

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Loving the ideas for this forum software. Best of luck with it!

 

Im sure they will go somewhere, it has alot of potential but just lacks alot of important things a regular forum should have.