I agree in part. I don't like forum only sites to be honest, and do prefer sites which actually have nice, written content to go along with a forum as well as maybe a few other features, since the amount of forum only sites reminds me of the vast amount of forums (especially free ones) with no real content trying to compete in saturated markets and shutting down within a week...
this is the folley of many a web master. I call it the field of dreams folly.
"if we build it, They will come". Forums such as this generally fail. Unless you have a core group of users that love each other from somewhere else, there wont be a draw.
My forums are a tricky case. We're a dedicated forums built around hockey Goaltending. We at least have a common grasp, However, there are others with us in this field. We've had to try and stand out against others. we've linked up with an equipment manufacturer so that users can find out how things are made and get deals. We've got an NHL goalie coach posting so that people can actually get information and articles from a professional. Without stuff like this we would have easily dissappeared as just "another goalie forum"
Despite those things too, there's still the strive to increase the community. as a stand alone forum it's hard to do. I'm always looking for ways of adding ontop of the forum with thigns to draw people. we've got classifieds and a chat. Still it's not enough as everyone wants to do everything in one place.
My next step is to do exclusive content hosting such as video's.
04-22-2008, 04:21 PM
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