hoangvu
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How to Create a Successful Forum - Part 1
On the web there are thousands of Forum on hundreds of topics, most of these forums, however, are sparsely populated and frequented by very few messages. Create a forum successful, in fact, is much more complicated than you might think. It is not enough, in fact, load a script such as phpBB and vBulletin a web space to say we have created a community! To create a forum of success you need a lot of commitment and a clear strategy.
In this article I will try to analyze with you some aspects that, in my opinion, are able to make a decisive contribution to the birth and flourishing of an online community.
Preliminary issues
Before adding operating in the maze, let's analyze some preliminary issues that it is good to take into consideration before you decide to create a new forum.
Choice of theme
You have decided to create a forum? Well, great! What do you want to talk? as ... a bit 'of everything? Nooooo.
One of the most common mistakes when you decide to create a forum is to not individurae 's niche topic you wish to address. Create a community where we are discussing everything is difficult, indeed impossible. Such communities existed at the dawn of the Internet (I personally remember one by Clarence) but went disappearing with time and today was finally supplanted by social networks. If you plan to create a forum general I invite you to think well before you start and wasting precious energy.
My suggestion, then, is to find a very specific topic around which to build a community of experts / enthusiasts. The starting point in identifying "the subject" must, of course, look within yourself, such as are your passions and your skills. It would be foolish to think, you can create a forum for finance if you do not even know what a bond! If you're a football experts create a community devoted to your team, if you love cooking metete up a forum dedicated to recipes and gastronomy, etc..
Before you jump into the fray, it is also advisable to do some preliminary investigation on Google to make sure that the topic you want to deal with is not inflated (for example, because "dominated" by some other forum particularly important and popular). Individurae be able to reference the right niche is very important: my advice is to try to identify the "right topic" on which - in your ward - there is so much to say. In a nutshell: the task of your forum should be to fill a void in the market! If you can do this you are already on the right track.
One note: if you decided to take on some forums already exists, be very careful. Unless we have identified some major failing (which you propose to fill with your new community) the risk of failure is very high! Why, in fact, people should abandon a forum already well underway and attended to discuss the same things about your new forum empty? In conclusion, a forum started already enjoys a huge competitive advantage that makes life very difficult for similar forums recently created.
Choice of board and hosting plan
Once you have chosen the theme around which will rotate your community will be the case to face another central aspect, the choice of the board that will manage the community.
There are several scripts available for creating online communities, some free and others for a fee. It 's very important, especially if you have the ambition to create a community of a certain size, orientation immediately un'applicativo powerful to handle a large amount of data, so avoid using database scripts unsuitable (such as, for example, a text file or XML) or obsolete languages. My advice is to move towards a solution PHP / MySQL.
Among the script of this kind to point out:
phpBB (Open Source)
Phorum (Open Source)
MyBB (Open Source)
VBulletin (Extra Charge)
Xenforo(Extra Charge)
IP.Board (Extra Charge)
Equally important is choosing the right hosting where, of course, is preferable to a paid solution.
In this case, it is crucial to understand what are your expectations if you expect a good response from traffic is good to know that hosting a low cost could soon be unsuitable for your purposes. These applications, in fact, are very complex and each processing page requires dozens of queries to the database, a web space at low cost, therefore, could result in unacceptable performance (loading times rather long), causing a leak of your users.
Time and passion
Third essential requirement to create an online community from scratch is to have the time to follow and a lot of passion and determination to take the project forward even when things do not seem to turn in the right direction.
If you have a life full of commitments and think risucire to create a community dedicating some cropping time ... Well, forget it.
If you start from scratch you have to put in quote dozens and dozens of hours of work just to run the forum and do know a little 'around. The work is exhausting and not always the results are immediately gratifying. Need a lot of patience, persistence and a lot of passion for what you are doing.
On the web there are thousands of Forum on hundreds of topics, most of these forums, however, are sparsely populated and frequented by very few messages. Create a forum successful, in fact, is much more complicated than you might think. It is not enough, in fact, load a script such as phpBB and vBulletin a web space to say we have created a community! To create a forum of success you need a lot of commitment and a clear strategy.
In this article I will try to analyze with you some aspects that, in my opinion, are able to make a decisive contribution to the birth and flourishing of an online community.
Preliminary issues
Before adding operating in the maze, let's analyze some preliminary issues that it is good to take into consideration before you decide to create a new forum.
Choice of theme
You have decided to create a forum? Well, great! What do you want to talk? as ... a bit 'of everything? Nooooo.
One of the most common mistakes when you decide to create a forum is to not individurae 's niche topic you wish to address. Create a community where we are discussing everything is difficult, indeed impossible. Such communities existed at the dawn of the Internet (I personally remember one by Clarence) but went disappearing with time and today was finally supplanted by social networks. If you plan to create a forum general I invite you to think well before you start and wasting precious energy.
My suggestion, then, is to find a very specific topic around which to build a community of experts / enthusiasts. The starting point in identifying "the subject" must, of course, look within yourself, such as are your passions and your skills. It would be foolish to think, you can create a forum for finance if you do not even know what a bond! If you're a football experts create a community devoted to your team, if you love cooking metete up a forum dedicated to recipes and gastronomy, etc..
Before you jump into the fray, it is also advisable to do some preliminary investigation on Google to make sure that the topic you want to deal with is not inflated (for example, because "dominated" by some other forum particularly important and popular). Individurae be able to reference the right niche is very important: my advice is to try to identify the "right topic" on which - in your ward - there is so much to say. In a nutshell: the task of your forum should be to fill a void in the market! If you can do this you are already on the right track.
One note: if you decided to take on some forums already exists, be very careful. Unless we have identified some major failing (which you propose to fill with your new community) the risk of failure is very high! Why, in fact, people should abandon a forum already well underway and attended to discuss the same things about your new forum empty? In conclusion, a forum started already enjoys a huge competitive advantage that makes life very difficult for similar forums recently created.
Choice of board and hosting plan
Once you have chosen the theme around which will rotate your community will be the case to face another central aspect, the choice of the board that will manage the community.
There are several scripts available for creating online communities, some free and others for a fee. It 's very important, especially if you have the ambition to create a community of a certain size, orientation immediately un'applicativo powerful to handle a large amount of data, so avoid using database scripts unsuitable (such as, for example, a text file or XML) or obsolete languages. My advice is to move towards a solution PHP / MySQL.
Among the script of this kind to point out:
phpBB (Open Source)
Phorum (Open Source)
MyBB (Open Source)
VBulletin (Extra Charge)
Xenforo(Extra Charge)
IP.Board (Extra Charge)
Equally important is choosing the right hosting where, of course, is preferable to a paid solution.
In this case, it is crucial to understand what are your expectations if you expect a good response from traffic is good to know that hosting a low cost could soon be unsuitable for your purposes. These applications, in fact, are very complex and each processing page requires dozens of queries to the database, a web space at low cost, therefore, could result in unacceptable performance (loading times rather long), causing a leak of your users.
Time and passion
Third essential requirement to create an online community from scratch is to have the time to follow and a lot of passion and determination to take the project forward even when things do not seem to turn in the right direction.
If you have a life full of commitments and think risucire to create a community dedicating some cropping time ... Well, forget it.
If you start from scratch you have to put in quote dozens and dozens of hours of work just to run the forum and do know a little 'around. The work is exhausting and not always the results are immediately gratifying. Need a lot of patience, persistence and a lot of passion for what you are doing.
