Another method to consider is Joomla or Mambo, which are CMS's (content management scripts). Both may be a little intimidating at first, but they provide a means for users to join and add content such as blogs and can integrate with a discussion board. Both can be automatically installed by cPanel, a hosting control panel.

When you're looking for hosts, consider linux versus Windows. In general both provide the same service, however, linux hosting is more common and inexpensive. Windows is needed for MSSQL (database) and .asp web pages/sites. However, linux provides much of the same functionality in different languages, such as PHP and can server MySQL.