Considering upgrade, need input

[GOTHAMMARKETING]

Howdy, guys. I've been a VB user for a number of years, but my last license was for 3.6.8, and I'm thinking about upgrading. There are some things I'd like to do to "go commercial' and would like your feedback to see what my options are.

Presently my site is driven by voluntary subscriptions at $10/year which offer increased PM storage, image upload, and some other things that are not available to non-subscribing members.

I'd like to open my forum to vendor-sponsors and give each of them their own sub-forum, along with installing iTrader, and some other plugins. The goal, obviously, is to take a 7000 member forum from 'free' to something that can, after seven years, finally generate some revenue for me.

For example, perhaps a game gallery, banner and/or opt-in email promotional campaigns, and other things of that sort would possibly be of interest to the community.

Please feel free to suggest any ideas or additions, but especially I'd like to hear comments on whether or not VB4.x is a sensible step, or if it's additional cost without incremental benefit.

Thanks in advance!

[Tancey]

i would recommend to hold on a little. VB4 is still beta and mod authors are not writing mods to it as seriously as for vb3 as at any moment code can change and mod will cease to function.

Wait till vb4 goes gold, then the mods will start poring in mate.

[GOTHAMMARKETING]

Originally Posted by Tancey

i would recommend to hold on a little. VB4 is still beta and mod authors are not writing mods to it as seriously as for vb3 as at any moment code can change and mod will cease to function.

Wait till vb4 goes gold, then the mods will start poring in mate.

Tracey, thanks for the feedback. Presuming the most popular mods for VB3.x will be carried over by the developers to VB4, what should I be looking at in terms of function to get where I want to be in taking my forum 'commercial' in terms of the vendor/sponsor support I indicated and also member retention and revisit?

[Tancey]

I'm not going to give you advice about things im not sure about. im not a marketer I'm an admin on few forums but i don't do the decisions about users, layout and appearance etc. I'm just the techie

You might want to wait and see if anyone with the experience you need will post a reply and help you.

Good luck!

[TheLastSuperman]

I would look into some of the mods you want maybe visit the authors site etc and see if they plan to upgrade and find out if there are current free mods that can meet your needs yet still serve your purpose otherwise you might have to pay for custom work - Why do that when you have the 3.8, 3.7, 3.6, and 3.5 forums which house more mods than I can download lol and most mods will work between the different version I have 3.5 on 3.8 3.6 on a 3.8 some just require an edit but careful backups and testing with some bare in mind. Personally I LOVE vB4 but some need to hold off like Tancey said and weigh their options very carefully after becoming a bit more informed.

Just my 2 cents.

Mike

[GOTHAMMARKETING]

Originally Posted by TheLastSuperman

I would look into some of the mods you want...

Yeah, but part of knowing what one wants is a byproduct of knowing what's out there and what it does. As mentioned, there are so many mods that I was hoping for some feedback to get me pointed in the right direction. It would be helpful if someone who's presently running a forum on a commercial basis with the sort of vendor sponsor/advertising I indicated could chime in. It's just not feasible to install zillions of mods in the hope that maybe one out of a hundred might be right.

Surely someone out there has a commercial board and generates revenue from advertiser and merchant sponsors. What do you use and if you had it to do all over again, would you do the same thing?

[steven s]

Originally Posted by GOTHAMMARKETING

Surely someone out there has a commercial board and generates revenue from advertiser and merchant sponsors. What do you use and if you had it to do all over again, would you do the same thing?

That's a slippery slope.

My site is just a hobby and have resisted advertiser and vendor sponsors.
We are totally self-sufficient with google adsense and site supporter donations.

You will need to moderate any negative posts towards a vendor/sponsor.
I see it on many forums, posts deleted, people banned.
Entirely up to you of course.

[GOTHAMMARKETING]

Originally Posted by 1996 328ti

...You will need to moderate any negative posts towards a vendor/sponsor.... I see it on many forums, posts deleted, people banned.

Understood. We have a good moderation team and in the seven years the forum has been in operation, I've had to only ban one member. The rest are spammers. It's a very mature and polished group so I'm less concerned with that as I am adding value to both the membership and advertisers by providing a venue where vendors and buyers can meet. Which is why I'm again asking for what recommended mods y'all would suggest.

[TheLastSuperman]

Originally Posted by GOTHAMMARKETING

Understood. We have a good moderation team and in the seven years the forum has been in operation, I've had to only ban one member. The rest are spammers. It's a very mature and polished group so I'm less concerned with that as I am adding value to both the membership and advertisers by providing a venue where vendors and buyers can meet. Which is why I'm again asking for what recommended mods y'all would suggest.

Well I'm not familiar with your niche and it seems your wanting more advice than one can give in general but this might help...

Nexalia does iTrader and he is on here now as vbenhancer who has stated he is supporting 3.8 mods only and most only on his site so iTrader is out for now unless you hire someone to recode it. If you want to use third party scripts like aMember for subscriptions, affiliates, and payouts etc (which is a 3rd party script along with numerous others not even listed here on vb.org) then that would be a no to 4,0 as well. What I meant to explain is you have thousands of mods already you could choose from not to install thousands of them and pick and choose as not all would be compatible lol that would be a mess I have to say but not mocking just saying lol.

We need you to tell us what your looking for, we'll rack our brains and try to post links to mods or point you in the right direction but a vague although well stated post is just not enough no matter how well you explained it thinking it was not vague in detail see what I mean? Help us help you.

Banners/Sponsors/Advertisers mods just use the search box above on the right.. it's more of a friend to you here than google is

Mike

[sgthoskins]

Great info Mike. Thanks.