galleries?

[CD Burnt]

anyone think having image galleries will help bring traffic and keep members "hooked"?


if concerned about loading down the forum, the galleries could be on a different server (on a subdomain, for example)


maybe an seo king like swr could comment on how to use a gallery to improve se results :)

[Tyler]

Well, depends on your user type I believe. If they are image addicts, then why not supply 'em with an image gallery? But, once you get to know 'em and they are not, then it probably won't do any good. :)

Sadly, there aren't many good vB galleries that are free :(

[cyberturk]

One month before on the one of my forums, a member opened a therad that "Send your photos" Other Members upload their photos to imageshack.us and replies it. There are 120 replies :D So i set up the user gallery (ipb forum so we use it is gallery it is cheap and useful)

You can ask via a topic or or open a thread like this may be :)

[Jan]

Take a look at http://www.photopost.com/ :)

[adb22791]

Take a look at http://www.photopost.com/ :)

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Photopost sued vbgallery so that they could get vBgallery's software and get them out of the competition. There is a big thread at vbulletin.com.

[Scott]

The problem I've had with galleries is that most don't integrate very well with the software.

Invision's gallery for IPB, for example, is a nice bit of software but is pretty much stand-alone except that it uses the same database.

Sure, add a gallery and see how it goes, but unless you have a very active graphics community, I wouldn't expect it to be instantly active.

I wonder if anyone has managed to add a gallery and keep it active? If so...how?

[Chile]

I think Galleries are just a side show. Forums such as ConceptArt.org have galleries, but they aren't even integrated into the forums. In fact, for a major site, they seem to do very well with simply providing forums for people to post their work and recieve a critique. ;)

[Tristen]

I'm using SMF 1.0.6 and I will be adding an image gallery very soon. Well, to be quite honest, I'm lost as to what I should be looking for. If anybody can possibly steer me in the right direction I would greatly appreciate it. Let me know if it would help to provide you more information about my forum , ie.. server, space, subdomains.

Thanks ... Tristen

[Scott]

I would use a gallery for members to show their work, which is especially useful for forums which are targeted at that topic.

There are a few other things which I'd use this for, such as meet ups, but it really depends on your forum and its members.

[Tristen]

Hi Scott,

Are there any specific galleries you might recommend? And are these online gallery sites or gallery software I can install and setup on my own server?

Thanks for you time and patience. I am still a long ways from feeling comfortable with many forum related issues. I'll just keep plugging away and aplogozing alot while asking one silly question after another.

Thanks,
Tristen

[Scott]

Don't worry about silly questions, everyone started somewhere ;)

As for galleries, Coppermine is probably one of the better ones. I'm pretty sure (although I'd suggest looking into this) that you can integrate it with SMF if that's what you're using. It does require install and setup on your own server.

Others might have more suggestions, but I'd have a look at Coppermine :)