How much for your users?
 

Some day someone Intelligent will start buying your members for his/her board... so how much will you sell your users?

p.s. maybe I will try it :D

You can't buy users, you can only tell them about your place, which is advertising, which is done all the time. You can't stop them members from not going visiting the place you bought them from and keep them at your place. You could buy the board with members then shut the board down and offer the existing members your place to visit, but that would be buying the board rather than just buying the members

This is the kind of intelligent thread that should be posted more often. I'd pay a gazillion pounds (sterling) x the speed of light for a good hearty user. It would be tough though, Migration would need to be controlled and convoys protected by our forces whilst the migration is being processed.

I can think of a few id give away for free. :)

Sorry to tell, but I still don't know anything that can't be traded for some dirty-nasty money :(

How many sites about games are out there?

Average users? 200 to 2k?

Income? under 100usd monthly?

chances of succeed? 50%?

you know what? sell them to me... if I got th structure, if I provide the services, then is business for me :)

what it bugs me is that some day someone more business minded, more pro-active and that doesn't stop on the 'maybes' and work in the 'hows' could try it and we just have to sit back and say: 'Oh yeah, it could be done...'

anyways my figures are: since you buy the 100% of the users [merge] you take the risk to lose 40% immediately :rolleyes:

p.s. I have seen like 50 boards die...

I just pruned 5 and a half thousand members from my site. I'm sure i can revive them for you at a dollar a head. :D

:D

Show me their activity, their longevity, separate them in age demographics and location and we can reach a deal :p
besides they are volatile assets since they weren't treated good ;) [like I said: most business minded]

it will be a good an idea for me to receive all the undesirable users from other boards and since I don't have a neurotic-administration attitude and I will rule with iron fist... maybe I receive your punished guys.. [worked for Aus...]

Please do not use our site to make a business offer.

Theoretical discussion on this topic is fine, but don't turn this into actual offerings.

I personally am very close to most of my members. Now, I have an average size board, close to 900 members. I don't think I would sell them for anything lower than the price of my goal, which is very high, so I wouldn't sell them at all. What I did with my members is take advantage of a few boards that I went on when they were dying lack to administrator activity and let them know about my site. Since, I talk to most of them like I stated and most of them like and respect me, the site took off. Now, it is breaking those boundries and getting more members which seems to pose a challenge.

See Shelley? I will pay you with theoretical $$$

Then you have your numbers straight, you don't have to worry... the problem I know personally 3 former forums owners, they give up and drop their project+users

^ ^ How do you find these dead boards/Forums?! I'd love to snag some members of a ditched project >_>

I know the guys, they become colleagues, then ZAZ! some day they decided to shut down the place... and I bet it happens too often, I going after the users not the licenses...

Then I will sell you theoretical members. Per 1 theoretical member will cost you 1 theoretical x the speed of light + theoretical $.

Dealio! how can I transfer you the theoretical money???

I think I will hire a undergraduate MBA and try... there's still the technical part and the psychological aspect of the users...

Every merger brings anxiety and collective hysteria...

http://pro.corbis.com/images/42-1767...-B451207C29AE}

p.s. happened here when Jelsoft was acquired

Mailing lists are bought and sold every day. Some companies like Publisher's Clearinghouse actually make their money selling their mailing lists, including emails. Why do you think when you order something from one company, you start getting catalogs from a dozen different companies?

This would be no different. Forum A with 10,000 users sells those users including username, password and email address to Forum B for 35 cents per user. They just made $3,500. They can then sell it to Forum C, D and E for the same price.

Really not something that would be difficult to accomplish. Personally, I feel this is unethical and wouldn't participate in such a transaction but many people do on a daily basis. Someone can go buy a DVD with every address in the United States on it for about a $100 at Best Buy and then sell that data to others as well. You can find more specialized databases on the Internet. Most likely if you search hard enough you will find people selling their mailing lists for newsletters and forums.

Thanks for your post, somehow you always bring the big picture afloat...

Well, it's unethical for the sellers, not for the buyers, and the transaction will not be an one step process, you have to reassure me that you will close your board at least for 3 months in order to convey the sensation of full transfer... and I will pay on installments... kind of ;)

Reminds me of a guy who tried to set up a site mimicing mine. To give you an idea of how close this mimicing was, he'd bought the same skin, the forum setup was almost the same, and he had copied the site rules word for word, save for altering the site and admin names. He'd apparently found the slowest shared hosting he could find, and he wanted some sort of business deal with me. I never got the details, since I was too busy laughing, but his main offer to readers was to spam myspace with an award of $100 for the best poster that month. It ... really didn't work. He paid it out, but it didn't work.

Being a devious sort, I wandered over to Whois and got his details - in the UK, as am I, so I had his phone number. However, just to make a point, I sent him a birthday card with Scooby Doo on the front wishing him a happy 6th birthday, and wrote on the inside that it was from all the friends he wanted to have at *mysite*.com. Please don't think I'm evil for this - I spent a little extra and got him the one with the badge on it. I'm generous.

Rapscallion

Thats exactly what I do. I talk to a lot of admins because I like to compare ideas and then their site is gone and I go after their database by just asking. More than half the time, they ask to become moderator. Usually, I say no, but depends on the size and its great for traffic. Also, sometimes, I get a free domain name with it. :D

Well it's not like dealing with consummate business ppl, with all due respect we are hobbyists...

I won't sell my members, but if it were possible to buy guaranteed members (such as another forum like mine, is going out of business/closing - and the users merge over to mine, and post)

Then I would, but other then that, if they don't like the new 'change' or the new site, they will just leave.

Money wasted :(

I'll buy them at .01 per member. ;)

I will never sell my users, it would be an all or nothing type of deal. in otherwords, you'll have to buy the forum to get the users, but I would be interested in buying other forum members from forums related to mine any day of the week :)

^ ^ Ya he knows what I'm talkin about!

Whats the point of buyin random forum users...Just a 50/50 shot of 'em staying, and that's being generous.

Find forums related to yours, then think business.