Forum vs Blog??

Hi
I am wanting to add a forum or a blog to my site. Which is better? I'm not even sure what the difference is.
Thanks for your time.

Forums are where you want lots of people to discuss about lots of topics.

Blogs are where you voice your personal opinion from time to time
and viewers can read and post comments on your different opinions.

Now, decide what type of information you want to share and start
a blog or a forum accordingly.

Carson, for the longst time I could not tell the difference either. Then they explained it as simple as above. They are the same basically, but on blogs, you start all the "posts" / "threads", while on forums, almost anyone can start a post.

If you have a lot to say - a blog might be pretty good, but a forum will usually cause more interaction with the visitors I think.

Also, if you want your website grow fast and get loyal visitors, add forum. since they can post on forum

Carson a blog is short for web log. It is your personal soapbox to say whatever you feel. People can post comments but a forum is better for interaction. You can start a forum on your site and blog about it. Every time you blog (go to blogger(dot)com its free) ping your blog (pingomatic) and it alerts the search engines that you have new content on your blog. You should add links to your site in your blog so you have high PR one way links to your site.

So you should do both. Blogging is an important way to generate traffic and you need traffic to have a successfull forum. You can also set up your blog with RSS feeds to your site so updates are available right away.

Why don't you start with blogs first? From there, you can discuss anything and everything about your site, what you are selling and what message you want to convey with your audience.
If you want immediate questions to be answered, you can create a forum (like this), post your concern or just simply share an idea or topic and let forum members share what they think about it.

I agree. Blogs are better to start with if you have much to say. But I personally like Forums because visitors can post more stuff.

Talk about anything from babysitting to software freelancing

Both is really the best option if possible.
Here is one http://www.attachedtobaby.com/ that uses both.
This site uses Community Server http://communityserver.org tied in with the e-comm application.

Both give you content and traffic. Blog is easy to start. A forum with no real users will take time and marketing to get people to join, so it is harder to start.

An established blog might be hard because you will need to keep comming up with NEW content. An established forum is easy because it can run itself...of course if it is totally hands off then you will get loads of spam or rude or bad or etc posts which can hurt your userbase or forum goals.

So....my vote is start with a blog, leverage the traffic into a forum, then close the blog or add it as a smaller part of your new bigger forum feature.

What does it matter where, as long as you get your opinion/the word out. All you have to do is TRACK your sites and the numbers will tell you what is best.

I myself prefer the forums, like someone else said you can respond/reply and everyone is able to read everyone view points etc.