With all the things that can go wrong with a new forum, sometimes I wonder if it's not a mistake to start a new forum. With a new forum, you have no established community, very few forum posts, small staff and no real way to monetize the traffic that is coming onto the site. Not to mention how most people won't buy ad space on a new forum.
This could be one more reason to just buy an existing forum that has an established community and subtly transform it into your own forum vision, rather than starting from scratch.
What do you think? Is it a mistake to start a brand new forum?
I'm on the fence on this one. I love forum communities and the close knit that it offers than say, Facebook pages or what have you. I started being active on one forum site since I was 19. I'm 28 now, and I got to meet some good friends along the way. We all pretty much grew up together, even if it's online only.
If you're willing to spend a lot of hours and dedication to starting a new forum, I say go for it. It's not going to be easy, in fact, it's a lot harder than what it used to be due to the rise of social media and networks these days. People generally don't see the appeal in forums when there's something convenient like FB pages, Twitter, etc. I'd say have at least 2-5 key players to help you out, because trust me, it's frustrating tackling things by yourself.
It's definitely easier to move an established community into a new one than to form one from scratch, however it's far more costly to buy a forum as you've mentioned, and a few of those users may not like your new community and may leave, so it's hard to say really.
It's never a mistake to start a new forum, getting new memberships, new topics and less spammers. Members are normally registered with several forums at a time and enjoy each one.
While I agree that making a forum with a large member base is harder now, I disagree that it's because of social networking. (Social networking and forums, I feel, do not compete directly with each other. They offer different things and can easily co-exist. If social networking were truly going to have gotten rid of forums, it would have done so by now. However it hasn't and likely won't even be able to.)
I think the real reason that making a community is tougher now is because there are so many ways to easily start one. I mean if you don't want to deal with self hosting (due to cost, lack of coding knowledge or interest) then you can use free hosted forums which can be set up as easily as:
- Enter desired board name.
- Enter desired username.
- Enter password.
- Enter your email.
- Click submit.
- Board is online at <desiredboardname>.site.tld or site.tld/<desiredboardname>.
Even self hosted forum software have become far more user friendly so it doesn't take that much technical skill to set up a self hosted forum (compared to what it used to). I mean compare getting IPB 1.3 set up to setting up MyBB 1.8... Especially in regards to modding. (MyBB is so easy in that you upload files to proper folders, go into ACP -> Plugins and click "activate" by plugin name. Then configure any settings as desired. On IPB setting a new mod very often meant digging into the source code and adding sections, while hoping that things didn't break.)
It's never a mistake to start a new forum, getting new memberships, new topics and less spammers. Members are normally registered with several forums at a time and enjoy each one.
I agree, I am actually active in about 6-7 forums and actually more active than in Social networks, FB is for family and friends, a bit of business but nothing much, while twitter is only used to have quick chats about news and stuff.
In forums you can get some decent conversation with people and even more if you are on a dedicated forum.
Also, I noticed that people request help on forums when they stuck with something, FB pages are hardly used to give support, not in depth anyway.
Buying is risky, in my opinion. As has been said here, some members might not like this, and stay away. You have no guarantee that the forum will remain active.
I just started a new forum myself. The way I see it, there is little risk involved. I purchased a domain and had it hosted. All together, less than $100 for a year.
If it becomes successful, yay! If not.. it was worth a try.
Depends really what is your ultimate goal. If you just open new freehost forum about videogames or cartoons you're basically doomed to fail. How fast only depends on how long you have the patience to breathe life into that project.
But yes, it's hard to get a new forum off the ground and it takes a lot of work and dedication. Same as any business really, you just need the right mindset for it to succeed. And even then you just might not be able to get the ball rolling.
A lot of new forums end up closing down after a while, yet there are a few new forums that are quite successful and have great potential. It depends if you have that unique selling point and drive for the forum. If you manage it correctly, then a new forum can be successful. There are lots of factors that place a role in the success of a new forum so whether or not its a mistake will depend on the owner.
I think you should only start a forum if you have a promising plan, a committing schedule towards the site and intentions to not give up. I've made mistakes like opening sites then not knowing what to do or having a very busy schedule and not being able to commit to the site, and it makes life a whole lot harder. Now adays with so many forums around, forums have to be extreme to last.
It's never too late to start a forum. You've got so much to offer to the world, so why not take that chance today? If people like your forum, they'll keep coming back.
