I am debating on starting a new forum, but I am wondering, does anyone really go to forums, other than webmasters of course.. This is site would be a home type forum and I am unsure in this day and age how attractive a forum would be.. Most ppl use social nowadays?
Whats a good script? I have used Vbull in the past, as well as a couple of the freebies.. If i do go with this venture, I need one that has full social capabilities
Do people use forums? Yeah, of course. People probably also still use ICQ and dialup. Just because people use something doesn't mean that it's thriving. What is your end goal with these forums? Just a hobby or money? As to your question about software - XenForo is the best, imo.
suggest you have a careful read of this thread @ AdminZone before proceeding: https://theadminzone.com/threads/are-forums-dying.142524/
Interesting what was said about BBS's being a pre-cursor to forums. That was true in my case. But there is a difference between "forums are dying" and "forums are difficult to start now because most niches are competitive".
Not only webmasters go to forums. Many forums still offer some sort of community. When social media was still small, forums was where people would go to. Anyway, people still go to forums now. A forum might be a good addition to a site, aside from social media presence, for interaction.
I am surprised that even experienced internet marketers think starting a forum is a good idea. It's not. For a forum to live up to its purpose it has to have thousands of active members. Hell, it may take years before a new forum gets to that point (if it ever gets there). I'd say skip on starting a forum and invest your time and energy into something else, something more profitable.
My guess is, most of the people who think forums are still a profitable venture have not actually created one themselves.
If we could chime in, indeed from a profitability stand-point, forums will be very challenging unless you are willing to wait years for it to become huge and solicit your own direct offers. We have worked with several forums in our business and can tell you that click-through rates on forums are terrible, forums also tend to attract users who are more likely to be using ad-block which will cut into your profit. Not to mention if you get big enough you will have costs and will need to moderate it which is time consuming. We agree with @qwikad.com and @GTAce that you might want to look at a different venture if you are looking for something new.
Most successful forums never started off as just forums. They usually were web sites attracting traffic to a particular niche THEN they added the forum and it "took off". I can't think of anything positive that can come out of throwing up a random forum with 0 traffic. Oddly...I agree with @qwikad.com
So, I created a website obviously for the mobile web app KIK. The website is doing fairly well and I am taking hopefully all the suggestions to make it the best it can. I thought it would be nice to create a forum for users to interact on the site so the website would not be a one trick pony. I am using phpBB 3.2 version with style Flatboots. That theme and style looks really nice and streamlined but I am not forum genius. I have forums and subforums attached to even that. They have categories but I am not really sure where to implement them. Anyway, I have had a few "bots" or "spammers" login to the forum but no traction. My idea, which isn't really a good one, is to start off with a bunch of account and create some dialogue to get things moving. This is so that people actually think traction has taken hold. Maybe possibly then advertising a little directly to that page. I would like to increase the traffic. Does anyone here have any suggestions that seemed to work for them to gain attraction to utilizing their forum? I roughly get around 300-500 visitors a day and I am hoping with all the improvements there will be an increase. I still have to update the forum so everything, including text is in place. Just trying to get ideas. Thanks. Sorry if I am posting in an old thread. I can't seem to post anything for myself yet.
Well why do you think people dont use forums ? Go to popular forums and open first results and you will see are made 30 40 or 50 threads daily or more .What irs says this to you ? It means it has a lof of members and are active etc
My suggestions. Just start your forum. To promote it, use Quora actively; you will know which people are interested in your theme and may join your forum too. Best of Luck. The best way to get real experience is just to start it.
The face of forums have indeed declined since they first started off... Take DP for instance, this forum has 17m posts, however, you do not find as many people on the forum at any given time, and it could be the "wemaster" niche is not as good as it once was, as I remember a time when I saw a good number of people logged into the forum, not so much anymore. It is pointless to setup a forum just to be setting one up. If you are going to setup a forum, then you should already have traffic on your site that you are making money, then add a forum as a supplement in order to educate your forum visitors, even then, it can take forever for a forum to really to kick into gear, unless what you offer already is all that.... I think the "webmaster" niche has declined a great deal, why? These people setup a site, expect to make money, then go to bed disappointed, or they got hammered by google and lost everything, who wants to deal with that shit? As a webmaster, would you find this niche appealing when you find out that you may have to spend years of hard work to get your site to the next level.....? Then you wake up one day wondering what happened to your $1000/wk paycheck.... Because google does not care weather you make a living, starve, or even die.... so yes, forums have taken a big hit over the years, so if you are going to setup a forum, then make sure your niche is profitable, and you should already have a good amount of traffic before even setting one up, otherwise, you will set up your forum, and start scratching your head saying, what now?
I completely agree. I have a running website with slow uptick of users. The hope is that the forum kind of starts going. I do not believe KIK will stay around for much longer. Only time will tell and by then I want to be able to migrate my users into something else. The forum is in its infancy stages so I hope users of my site start utilizing it over time. We will see. I want to be able to change the forum from what it is now, to something much more progressive and thought provoking in the future by slowly adding forums to relevant and interesting topics, slowly terraforming the space. I feel like users may not want to add to a forum with no response on it yet and that is why I am trying to figure out the best way to give that little kick.
I am a nerd at heart. You could call me a young neurobehaviorist. With the strength in behavior. So science and technology is where I want to go. But I want to delve out a space not yet known. Still thinking. I just want a space where more active communication and dialogue is occurring. IDK, we will see.