Tag Archive for 'Forums'

NASCAR-Forums.net

Published
by
J.B.Slife
on February 24, 2008
in Forums
. 10 Comments

NASCAR-Forums.netNASCAR-Forums.net was one of my original failing sites that I have decided to bring back to life. It will probably take a long time to get this one to take off, but it does have a couple good members that have taken an interest in it. It also has a few other things going for it.

Many People Love NASCAR

NASCAR is one of the most popular sports around and they all need a great place to talk about it. Since my Wife and I both love NASCAR, it shouldn’t be too hard for us to be regular participants. A forum that the owner doesn’t care about is doomed from the beginning. You never know, someday all of the members may meet at the races on a regular basis.

Great Software: vBulletin 3.7 beta 4

The site is running the newest beta of vBulletin. This new version of vBulletin has allowed me to remove many of the 3rd party hacks that I normally install in my forums. I believe this software gives me at least one advantage over the big dogs like NASCAR.com. With every NASCAR fan on the net (including myself) going to NASCAR.com on a regular basis, I need all the help I can get.

Time

I have all the time in the world. I am going to keep the site going just because I like it. Whether the site takes a month or ten years to get going, it doesn’t matter to me. I think I can get this site going and I think it’s going to take time.

That’s just a little update on NASCAR-Forums.net. If you like NASCAR stop by and say hello sometime. It really is a great place to talk NASCAR.

Two Members Currently Active on CountryMusicForums.net

Published
by
J.B.Slife
on May 14, 2007
in Forums
. 9 Comments

Most people think this is nothing, but any forum owner knows what it’s like to log into your new forum and find an active user online. Today was the first day that I actually found a user on my site at the same time as myself (actually there were 2 members plus me). Even better, I don’t know either of these users (they were just random people that found my site and registered). I know, I know…yipee. Well, they both also posted on the site more than one time. Not much, I know…but it’s still a major milestone for the site.

Check out County Music Forums, the newest country music forum on the net.

Why vBulletin?

Published
by
J.B.Slife
on March 12, 2007
in Forums
. 0 Comments

In starting a forum I looked at a few different programs, some free and some not. When it really came down to choosing, I chose vBulletin. I chose vBulletin because a majority of the forums that I was a member of used vBulletin. vBulletin was the natural choice for me, I liked to use it as a member.

Complaints I have heard about vBulletin?

  • The cost…$160
    • While this may be expesive to some, it’s not to me.
  • The admin panel is confusing.
    • Take the time to familiarize yourself with. It took me about an hour to figure out what I needed to know. Everything else I learn as I go.
  • There are too many features.
    • Only use what you need. I don’t use many of the features. Many people use the features that I don’t.

There you go, I went through those real quick. Oh, I forgot the one about vBulletin providing terrible support. I have always recieved the correct answer to my question, from vBulletin staff, in less than 24 hours. If you don’t have that long, throw your question on the forums at vBulletin. Someone will help you out.

Why did you start with the complaints?

The complaints about vBulletin are very short and very easy to challenge. I started with the easy part. Now I need to tell you about the positives. This post could go on all day with postives, a few of them are listed below.

  • Feature rich, but can be scaled down to your liking
  • Great support
  • Thousands of communities use it
  • Huge group of third party developers (vBulletin.org)
  • Powerful moderation tools
  • and on and on…

I am very happy with vBulletin and have no plans of changing or even researching other software. Are there other good programs?…sure. It all depends on what you are looking for. If you are looking for high quality forum software that has great support and can do almost anything, then vBulletin is for you.

Starting a Forum-Startup Expenses

Published
by
J.B.Slife
on March 11, 2007
in Forums
. 0 Comments

A forum should be thought of as a business, not a website. If you plan on starting a high quality community, plan on spending real cash. Don’t use every free service you can and throw money at long shots. Do your homework.

How much money do I need?

Do some searches for “starting a small business” or something of the sort. You will find that most business fail due to “lack of startup capital”. This is the same reason that you will fail if you don’t pay attention.

Search the net for “business plan samples”. Read some sample plans, get an idea of what they are, then write one. Waste of time?…I think not. A very important part of a business plan is budgeting. How much money are you planning to spend to get the forum up and running? How much will you spend the first year?…how about the second and third years.

Plan to have enough money in the bank to sustain your community for 3 years. For example, if it will cost you $500 for software to start the site and $300/year in hosting and advertising, then you should have $1400 dollars in the bank. WHAT! That’s right…create a plan…fund the plan…stick to the plan as much as possible.

Having money in the bank ensures you a chance. Everyone reads blogs about making money and how it can be done in a few months. This only true if you know exactly what your doing already. Most people that have started a website and succeeded very quickly have already failed on other projects. Just ask them.

Failing is learning.

Failing is learning…so plan to fail. Give yourself room to fail on a small scale. In building a great community, many ideas will not work. In fact, 9 out of 10 of my ideas don’t work. I plan for this. Everytime I have failed, it has brought me closer to success.

If you plan for minor mistakes and bumps along the way, you can ensure that the entire community (business) doesn’t fail. Having a little extra money in the bank will help you with that day you accidentally spend $250 on AdWords with no results. Every great web entrepeneur knows that mistake.

I still haven’t covered programs, hack, mods, plugins….I know. We’re starting with the important stuff. Tune in tomorrow.

JBSlife

Starting a Forum-What’s Your Niche?

Published
by
J.B.Slife
on March 11, 2007
in Forums
. 0 Comments

I said the other day that we would start off with some of the basics of starting a forum. I know you want to know all about programs, mods, hacks, SEO, and everything else; but these are not what make a forum succeed. It’s the niche. What’s your niche?

What is a niche?

  1. A special area of demand for a product or service.
  2. A situation or activity specially suited to a person’s interests, abilities, or nature.

What’s my niche?

Nobody can tell you what your niche is. You have to figure it out. I just needs to be something you know and love.

I have been a webdesigner for years. At one point I decided to start a webdesign company. It didn’t work because it wasn’t one of my passions, it’s just a skill that I aquired. Why not use this skill to get my message across?

I’m a gymnastics coach during the day, why not be one all the time. I used to surf the net for high quality gymnastics sites day in and day out. I just couldn’t really find a site that I liked. That’s when I found my niche. I decided to start a gymnastics site.

I started small, my gymnastic clubs website. I tried to started a site to sell lesson plans for gymnastics, it was too hard to sell something that is easy to get for free. Then I tried to start a gymnastics link directory, but that was too boring. That’s when I got into ecommerce (which is its own animal) and started Leotard Crazy. In learning about SEO and traffic building for Leotard Crazy, I started a gymnastics forum. As you can see, all of these websites are centered around the niche of gymnastics.

One failed site does not make your niche a failure. You need to keep trying and revising things until you have it correct. As you learn more, your ideas will become more clear. I am even thinking of reincarnating some of my old failed sites. Now that I now what I’m doing, I can easily get them going.

Is there a market for my niche?

Yes. Gymnastics, G scale model trains, scuba diving…everything has a market. You don’t have to worry about a market, you have to worry about the market being saturated. If your niche is video games or cell phones, you better be the best or you better choose something else. Just “Google” either of these to terms and see how many sites come up, lot’s of competition.

Think long and hard about what your niche is. In the meantime…check out my blog tomorrow. Thanks for reading.

JBSlife

Introducing The Chalk Bucket (gymnastics community)

Published
by
J.B.Slife
on March 9, 2007
in Forums
. 0 Comments

The Chalk Bucket is a gymnastics community powered by vBulletin. It started out as a natural extension of my gymnastics pro shop, Leotard Crazy. I just thought I would stick a message board on the site and people would start talking…I was wrong.

12 months and little to no activity.

I was under the impression that there are magical people on the internet that would come to the my forums and load them with high quality content. I built it…they did not come. I forgot about the whole project, just gave up on it. Shortly after 12 months with little activity I logged in and noticed that I did have one or two members that were very interested. At that point I new I could make it work, but I also knew it would take some work.

How did I get more members?

The Chalk Bucket is now about 18 months old and going strong. We are gaining great new members everyday. The posts are interesting and right on target with the subject matter. How did I get new members? I became one….I started taking a real interest in it. It has gone from something that I started to earn a living to something that (even though is earning very little right now) has great potential, something that I really care about.

Great story…how does that help me?

Ha…I love to talk. The Chalk Bucket is based on vBulletin. I have many hacks installed that are very important. I also have very specific SEO and advertising strategies that have been working with great success. Now we have the intro out of the way, we’ll start off with the basics tomorrow. If you have a forum (or want to start one) you’re going to find out how.