Is forum a risk?
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A lot of my friends they wanted to start a forum, but is it a good idea to do so? I’ve been developing a few forum that failed eventually. However, from there I learnt a lot though. Being a webmaster you need to test thing out yourself in order to give people advice, no pain no gain. As for now, I don’t create forum anymore. Here are my-whys.
1, I’m a freaking internet freak (Maybe you too?).
I’m not a socialize person, I spend a lot of time at home online and doing my homework. By this I mean, I couldn’t know more friends beside those from college and from the past. Forum require members, and these members shouldn’t be your friends. Friends come to your forum just for a little support, and it doesn’t do good for long run.
2, Members first then only content.
If you wanted to create a forum, make sure you can have 50 to 100 members (Not friends) ready. With this amount of members, your forum will have it content. Just a reminder, forum content is very depending on the members.
3, Forum is not money making machine.
I’m totally doomed when my friends told me that he wanted to create a forum and earn money. When I asked how can he do that, he kept silent. Why would I have this perspective? We need to get back to the core of forum. Forum is a place where people discuss about a certain thing, it’s a support and fun thing, it’s not making money thing. Well, unless the forum is all over the internet with tons of members, by that time advertiser will come to you instead. As for starter, let’s not think about money from your forum.
Above 3 are my ideas on why I think creating a forum is a risk, but you might be different though. However, creating forum is not risking, but it requires a lot of your time, energy, some socializing skills and attitude towards the forum. I see a lot forum administrators seems to be caring themselves more than the members. Last advice “Every websites you create is a service; serve right”.
P/S: Those who always complaint about this service is not good, that service sucks and etc, try not to create any forum.
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I’ve run a few forums in my time and they all failed at some point. While drama tends to bring on the visitors, it’s not the ones you’d like to have floating around it. While I never created a site (that wasn’t business related) to just make money, I did have one ad on my site for my own personal advertising but that was only done after I hit the 500 member mark.
These days, who really has time to dedicate themselves TO an active forum? Some administrators will go out of their way to setup and customize a forum but then have absolutely nothing to do with the members. What’s the point in that? If the admin doesn’t even wish to participate, why could the members be expected to do so?
There are some instances when the forum will take off. If it’s a general conversation forum then it will more than likely die within a couple of months, maybe even weeks for that matter. If you were to create a forum on a specific topic, like RPG an actor or something that someone shares a common interest in, then you’ll have a successful forum. There might not be 20,000 members but you’ll still have plenty of people to discuss a topic you love.
Thanks for the post, it’s nice to come across a new blog where the topics coming up that aren’t sponsored. Trust me, it’s very rare these days.
Regards.
Thanks for the tip here, great to know someone who willing to share this experiences
[...] Here you can find blogging tips and free Wordpress themes. You may want to subscribe to RSS feed.Previously I blog about how to start a forum. Today I would like to continue the part 2 of the entry, how to [...]