Engagement without interactivity
Searching and being searchable
Technical interactivity
Engagement and interactivity using just one page
Interactivity with two or more pages
Forums, message boards, and chat
Engagement and Interactivy
Jeff Williamson
Northern Virginia Community College
www.nvcc.edu/home/nvwillj/html-interactivity/
nvwillj@nvcc.edu
Guest books
Guest books are technically the same as forums; they just don't thread messages. However I think the name "guestbook" gives them a nice function - it makes people realize that this is a place to leave comments, rather than do the talk-response thing of chatrooms.
"Keepsakes and Dreams," a project of Gail Matthews-DeNatale and The Urban Alternative, has a nicely conceived guestbook, where visitors are encouraged to leave their ideas.
Guestbook software is CGI based, and so requires either a webmaster willing to run CGI scripts on your server (most aren't), or a free, usually advertiser--supported hosting site. Matt Wright has a guestbook script that is probably one of the more popular ones.
By far the most popular free guestbook service on the web is "The World Famous Guestook Server." Other free guestbooks are listed at The Free Site.