You sure going to fail!

babble · #1 (**permalink**) 10-12-2008, 07:40 PM

Well, for those of you who intend to start a forum solely on as a way to make money out of it, you will be in for a big disappointment. It is one of the hardest way to make money online with a forum.

But if you have passions, patience, hard work, and like to interact with people around the world on a particular topic, then by all means go ahead and start your forum. Only when you have enough members (maybe in the range of thousands) that you could make some money out of it by putting up some ads banners!

Alan · #2 (**permalink**) 10-12-2008, 07:52 PM

Just out of curiosity, what site is it you have that is hosted at that place?

lisa · #3 (**permalink**) 10-12-2008, 08:26 PM

Especially if you start a forum with no traffic base. Yes I agree it is very difficult to make money from a forum compared to other methods but the first goal is to get participation so you even stand a chance at making anything. Unfortunately most people have trouble at that step because they launch a forum without enough of a traffic base to support it.

jazzguy · #4 (**permalink**) 10-14-2008, 06:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by babble

Well, for those of you who intend to start a forum solely on as a way to make money out of it, you will be in for a big disappointment. It is one of the hardest way to make money online with a forum.

But if you have passions, patience, hard work, and like to interact with people around the world on a particular topic, then by all means go ahead and start your forum. Only when you have enough members (maybe in the range of thousands) that you could make some money out of it by putting up some ads banners!

Well said babble...

Freebird · #5 (**permalink**) 10-14-2008, 11:44 PM

I would imagine it's pretty hard to get a group of people to a new forum who will come back on a regular basis due to the number of forums out there.

jazzguy · #6 (**permalink**) 10-15-2008, 09:57 AM

The only reason to start a forum now is if you already have an established site and want to create a space for your readers to interact. Other than that, I would think it would be too much hassle to deal with. Cheers...

PeopleBrainstorm · #7 (**permalink**) 10-27-2008, 11:30 AM

Good Afternoon,

Not sure how much merit this response has to the original post or if it will open up the barn door for other opinions however...

What we've noticed in participating and conducting research on forums and the like is it's not necessarily quantity that matters in determining your success with this genre of business but in fact quality. It was observed that even though thousands of members may have been a part of a forum, only a handful had a high number of posting on a regular basis. Most members would hang around for a month, a week, or even worse just for the day, never to return again.

With this core group however it was noted that "the ball could keep rolling" no matter what seemed to be happening in general. So with that in mind, I feel we came to the conclusion that a succesful forum can be accomplished with a handful of dedicated contributors.

Respectfully submitted,

Brains

The People Brainstorm Team

lisa · #8 (**permalink**) 10-27-2008, 11:54 AM

Very true, Brains. If you look at the total number of forum members on this homepage and then look at the active members there's a huge gap in the numbers. And there were actually many more members than this but I clean out the non-posters every so often.

That also proves how much traffic you really do need to get a forum active. You are right, most people are not going to stick around long but you still need a lot of traffic so you can get those faithfuls/dedicated folks who stick around and post no matter what.

chrisinbc · #9 (**permalink**) 11-06-2008, 04:49 PM

Very interesting thread. I have no trouble believing that only a very small percentage of the members of a forum post on a regular basis. I for one am a leading example of this, as there are forums that I have signed up for that I am no longer active in. In fact, some of those forums it has been so long since I was an active member I can't even remember the name of the forum or my user name!

However, this is such a friendly, helpful forum that I think I'll be around here for awhile.

Chris H.

mirage2009 · #10 (**permalink**) 11-06-2008, 09:22 PM

Hey lisa I don't think success in forums is calculated in cash
but in the people who will be here when you need to announce a new web site maybe or something like that. Is that right?

mack77 · #11 (**permalink**) 11-11-2008, 11:36 AM

the maker of a forum needs to be dedicated obviously, ive joined some new forums were the admins cant be bothered responding to genuine posts, and thats why they fail, you need to be enthusiastic enough to care about every single post, its like a business where you have to care about every customer, and a good customer will spread the word around

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