Some advice on my new forum

[silent_thunder]

I have done many websites before but never dared to start a forum!! As running a forum requires a lot more than just technical or content knowledge.So I request BAF members to give advice to improve my forum.

Its http://sportscrazyforum.com I havent launched the website yet but the website is almost ready to launch working on a template if its done its all set to go before that I want to know what topics to include,what features do you like and what should I do to promote it thanks

Silent_thunder:)

[pendelton]

Possibly add in American Football, baseball, golf. Some, like curling, maybe a bit out there. Does the rest of the world do bowling?

[silent_thunder]

I would Like to but I have no clue about the sports that you have just mentioned!! How can I add content or atleast get people for these content..I just dont a whole lot of forums with no posts in it:D

Will look Like a lost world

[Kay]

I like the colors, silent thunder! You do have a few typos you might want to fix:


Every other sports that you can think off!! It does matter if its indoor Sports,outdoor sports, adventure sports Just about any sports discussion goes in here

should be :

Every other sport that you can think of!! It doesn't matter if it's indoor sports, outdoor sports, adventure sports...just about any sports discussion goes in here.


Discuss everthing that has should say "everything".

I agree with pendelton, you need an American football one to differentiate it from soccer, otherwise you'll get threads for both in that folder. Are you aiming for any particular geographic region at all? What's popular in one country may not be in another, that's why I ask.

To promote it, you could go join other sports forums and put the link to it in your profile and sig. Don't spam them though, make some decent posts and people will check you out. Any sites you're already a member of, add your link to it in your sig if that's allowed.

Rope in friends and family to help you get it started with some posts then go from there.

There's a place called theadminzone (http://www.theadminzone.com/forums/) which is specifically for forum owners. It has a Community Cooperative section where you can post asking for help with your forum and whether it's paid or unpaid.

A lot of young ones hang out there that have forums of their own or are looking for something to do so usually you'll get some offers of help. It wouldn't do any harm to join there and post a thread. There's older members as well.

Be sure though you follow the templates and guide at the top of the folder for requesting staff or you'll find yourself in hot water. :) Hope that helps!

[silent_thunder]

wow!! thanks for your guidance kay looks like you are a pro in forum business.I had Asia as the geographic target. Its less expensive and competitive to promote on-line in Asian circle than in Europe or the America's they seem to have a plethora of forums.

With booming economies Asian are bound get on-line in a big way . So banking on that.

[Nazreen]

wow!! thanks for your guidance kay looks like you are a pro in forum business.I had Asia as the geographic target. Its less expensive and competitive to promote on-line in Asian circle than in Europe or the America's they seem to have a plethora of forums.

With booming economies Asian are bound get on-line in a big way . So banking on that.

If it's Asia then I think it would be good to concentrate on sports that Asians love. In Singapore and Malaysia, we love soccer, badminton and table tennis. In China, they also like badminton and table tennis.

I don't know if your topic/subject is too general though because for one sport like badminton, there are already a lot of things to talk about. You can check Badminton Central Forum (http://www.badmintoncentral.com/forums/). This is a good forum to discuss anything about badminton.

[Fergal]

Congratulations and good luck with your new forum. I've signed up and made a few posts, including a couple of suggestions. It's a good domain name and the forum is user-friendly. Forums are difficult to grow and take a lot of time to manage. Be careful not to let spammers take over, or you will lose your real members.

Is there anything you can do to make the forum URL's more user-friendly? The ones on your forum are very long and will not help your search engine listings, you might be able to find a PHPBB mod to help with this.

[youbetcha1018]

What a nice forum. I will sign up in a bit.:D Just too busy now, anyway Can you put Billiards there, too? I play billiards and want to meet some friends who are in billiards too in your forum. Thanks.:)

[silent_thunder]

I can add all the sports but If there are more users!! If I add them now the forums will look empty and will look in active:)

Billards,snooker and pool can be clubbed together.

As we speak I am changing the structure of phpbb3's URL fergal. I have installed over 150 bots from Diff SE so indexing wont be a problem, But SEO friendly URL is!! Trying to get a decent URL.The MODS available are not Useful as they tend to be poorly coded. My friend is developing two mods one for falshing headlines and the other is SEO URL

[Fergal]

Thanks for the update Silent.

Have you started promoting the forum yet?

[silent_thunder]

Nope havent started it!! Planning to hire some posters to post is it good to hire posters??

Plan to get the friends involved too

fergal you are expert in forums??

[Fergal]

Thanks Silent, but I'm not sure that I could claim to be an expert. Paying posters can work well for a new forum. Personally I'd recommend hiring only a small number of posters to make a small number of posts each per day. This helps keep the forum more natural than if you pay for lots of posts and it also helps your budget. You might also consider some form of competition to encourage new members to join and start posting.

Another thing that is very important, is that you are interested in and active on the forum yourself. Members will expect you to reply to their posts.

[silent_thunder]

Thanks Silent, but I'm not sure that I could claim to be an expert. Paying posters can work well for a new forum. Personally I'd recommend hiring only a small number of posters to make a small number of posts each per day. This helps keep the forum more natural than if you pay for lots of posts and it also helps your budget. You might also consider some form of competition to encourage new members to join and start posting.

Another thing that is very important, is that you are interested in and active on the forum yourself. Members will expect you to reply to their posts.

I had arranged for an proxy admin!! I cannot spend too much time on the forum So I asked my friend to be the admin. :D

I am planning to hire people from my town, Who are desperate for some money,they need it for college so planned to hire them instead of professional posters, dont know whether I will get the quality of professional posters but I am sure they will be more lyal than posters once the term gets over

[silent_thunder]

Guys new style has been installed waiting for the members review. I designed it, have to refine it a bit more as it take a while to lead on Dail up..apart from that no problem yet..

[Kay]

Looking good, Silent! It's loading fine for me and I'm on dial up out here in the sticks. :) I signed up too to help get your numbers rolling and will add a few posts when I have a moment.

It's crucial that your admin's actively involved as Fergal says - if the admin doesn't show much interest, you can't expect anyone else to!

[Fergal]

The new style looks great, congratulations and good luck with it.

[Nazreen]

Sad to say that it's taking forever for your site to load Silent_thunder. I'm using broadband and your site just timed-out. Maybe it's a regional problem where users here in Singapore will have difficulty in accessing your site.

[Fergal]

The site just opened very fast for me, maybe it was a temporary issue?

[Kay]

I tried it again today on mine twice at different times and it was fine for me. It could well just have been a glitch, Nazreen, because you don't get any slower than mine. Ah, the joy of living in the country. :)

Meant to add, I received the welcome PM three times in my inbox, Silent. You might want to look at that. :)

[silent_thunder]

Thanks for the update Silent.

Have you started promoting the forum yet?

Nope havent started yet!! Waiting for the SEO mods and new games to be ready

[Fergal]

Most of the the posts and forum titles appear to be about major sporting events and watching sport. There doesn't appear to be much discussion by people looking for tips to improve their own fitness or sporting performance. Is this intentional?

[scifi]

Hi! Silent Thunder
I would suggest you to promote your site by including some popular games of diffferent countries..
For eg - India- Kabaddi, kho kho etc..
spain- bull fight
etc..
It's a gr8 way for the promotion of your site...

[silent_thunder]

Hi! Silent Thunder
I would suggest you to promote your site by including some popular games of diffferent countries..
For eg - India- Kabaddi, kho kho etc..
spain- bull fight
etc..
It's a gr8 way for the promotion of your site...

thanks for the advice!! I have added the sports under Other sports!!

New arcade games have also been added as suggested!! Now thw website has 23 flash games. All of them are different sports games:)

Need to finish the seo and the website is all set to go!!

Hope more people like it now

[Kay]

Most of the the posts and forum titles appear to be about major sporting events and watching sport. There doesn't appear to be much discussion by people looking for tips to improve their own fitness or sporting performance. Is this intentional?

That would be a great addition to it, either within a separate section or under the current categories.It would encourage more that actually participate in the sports as opposed to simply being spectators to join in. Some will do both but a mix of topics relating to both sides is a good idea.

Personally I'd opt for keeping the threads within their own sports categories. I'm not a fan of having millions of different sections, especially early on. It can look too bare if you don't have a lot of posts and they're too spread out.

[Nazreen]

New arcade games have also been added as suggested!! Now thw website has 23 flash games. All of them are different sports games:)

I didn't know that arcade games are considered as a sport Silent_thunder. I know that a lot of people play arcade games but I think that if you put a lot of sports categories in your forum, you'll be spreading yourself too thinly.

In my opinion, you must first focus on 3-6 sports that you're familiar with and start from there. If you know of people especially athletes or major sports fanatics, then you should invite them over and participate in your forum.

[louisgean747]

I like the colors

[silent_thunder]

I didn't know that arcade games are considered as a sport Silent_thunder. I know that a lot of people play arcade games but I think that if you put a lot of sports categories in your forum, you'll be spreading yourself too thinly.

In my opinion, you must first focus on 3-6 sports that you're familiar with and start from there. If you know of people especially athletes or major sports fanatics, then you should invite them over and participate in your forum.

Did you see the forum nazreen?? Check it out!! I have games which is related to sports!!

thanks for the comments !! I am getting a lot of response nearly 100 UV per day!! So I think the I am doing something correct So I am going to start promoting from next week!! Lets wait and watch the results:)

[Fergal]

...I am getting a lot of response nearly 100 UV per day!!...

Congratulations, that's no mean achievement.

[silent_thunder]

Congratulations, that's no mean achievement.

hehe most of them come and only 3 registered!!:)

Anyway I hope once I start the real promotion with better visiotrs I may get more!!

Just bought a campaign for 30,000 sports fans!! expensive at $150:mad:

[Fergal]

Good luck with the campaign.

Running a competition on the forum, might help some of those visitors into members. Especially if the competition offers an attractive prize and is easy to enter and participate in.

[silent_thunder]

Good luck with the campaign.

Running a competition on the forum, might help some of those visitors into members. Especially if the competition offers an attractive prize and is easy to enter and participate in.

what sort of Prizes?? I have mailed certain companies and waiting for their replies!! But I will get only gift vouchers. I am confused as what a sports forum can give!! Apart from cash:D

[Kay]

hehe most of them come and only 3 registered!!:)

Anyway I hope once I start the real promotion with better visiotrs I may get more!!

Just bought a campaign for 30,000 sports fans!! expensive at $150:mad:

That's not uncommon, silent, to have so few register at the beginning. Once you have more content in place and the visitors see lots of activity going on, you'll find they'll sign up more readily but it's a gradual process.

Many people (including myself) prefer to lurk at first to get a feel for the community and the kind of people that are there before they register. If it's empty and nothing going on, they don't hang around. I think 100 UV's a day is excellent! I'm impressed. You're doing good things, just keep building that content and try increase the stickiness of it.

Competitions are a great idea!


what sort of Prizes?? I have mailed certain companies and waiting for their replies!! But I will get only gift vouchers. I am confused as what a sports forum can give!! Apart from cash

Nothing wrong with cash! It saves you the shipping costs of a prize lol. I send parcels to the UK too often not to be obsessed with shipping costs. My rule is if it fits in a padded envelope, it can go. :D

DVD's don't always play in other countries (something to do with different ways the TV's are set up)so avoid that one. You could always get some T-shirts printed up with the site logo or URL on it. So maybe something like a book related to sports would be good? I still think cash is the simplest.

Please do keep us posted about the campaign too. I'd love to hear how that's all coming along if you don't mind sharing.

[Fergal]

Cash is always a good motivator. However, you need to be careful that your members are not posting just for the cash, even though they have no interest in sport. If you can come up with sport related prizes, the members who make an effort to win them will also be interested in sport.

[silent_thunder]

Cash is always a good motivator. However, you need to be careful that your members are not posting just for the cash, even though they have no interest in sport. If you can come up with sport related prizes, the members who make an effort to win them will also be interested in sport.

I will never give cash!! I need sports lovers!! Not web masters or make money online geeks hehe

But your system is good!! fergal people will post quality posts
Btw changed the forum topics as I got more posts hehe

URLS update
now it no longer stretches for an km..

http://www.sportscrazyforum.com/viewforum.php?f=4 just Nodes and numbers now!!;)

[Fergal]

Looks good Silent. You could consider offering vouchers for an online sports store, or even sports books from Amazon.

[silent_thunder]

Guys I have great news!! My website has been accepted in Killerstartups.com

This is a website that allows its users to rate the website and in turn we will get free publicity. I am happy:)

You can vote for my forum if you like Vote here (http://mykillerstartup.com/story.php?title=sports-crazy-forum--a-forum-for-true-sports-fans-index-page)

No registration required for voting

[Fergal]

Congratulations Silent, I've voted for you. Hope you get some members and publicity from it.

[lemon_1800]

I agree Silent should add in some famous sports like tennis, american football, badminton, hockey in his/her forum.
Right now I can see only football and cricket, that's not enough to drive traffic.
By the way, I've voted for you on killerstartups.com

[silent_thunder]

Sorry but I need to edit the previous post can I do that??

[Fergal]

Silent you can only edit your post for a short period of time. Once that time has past you cannot edit it, sorry.

[Kay]

Guys I have great news!! My website has been accepted in Killerstartups.com

This is a website that allows its users to rate the website and in turn we will get free publicity. I am happy:)

You can vote for my forum if you like Vote here (http://mykillerstartup.com/story.php?title=sports-crazy-forum--a-forum-for-true-sports-fans-index-page)

No registration required for voting

I voted for you too, silent! :) How's it all working out, are you happy with how the campaign's been going so far? I'd be interested in an update.

You could send out a press release too about your launch free, you know. There are sites that distribute them, just Google it. If I were you, I'd wait until the content was built up some more then consider doing that and some article marketing as well to promote your site.

[silent_thunder]

I voted for you too, silent! :) How's it all working out, are you happy with how the campaign's been going so far? I'd be interested in an update.

You could send out a press release too about your launch free, you know. There are sites that distribute them, just Google it. If I were you, I'd wait until the content was built up some more then consider doing that and some article marketing as well to promote your site.


I am waiting for three things
1. I want the forum to have atleast 200 threads So members will have able topics to discuss

2.I need sponsors for $300 worth of prize I got about $100 need some more I am sure I will get it

3.I want my exams to get over next week:)

[Nazreen]

Okay, I've also voted for your forum on mykillerstartup Silent_thunder. Good luck on your forum and your exams too!

[silent_thunder]

Okay, I've also voted for your forum on mykillerstartup Silent_thunder. Good luck on your forum and your exams too!

Thanks for the wishes. I wrote the exams well!!

Got a good score in this years CAT hoping to join a good college for management studies.I hope I get into IIM

Then my forum is going great with lot of wonderful posts and members. I happy and lucky to get 6 or 7 knowledgeable members who share my passion for sports.

That is my advice to other members start a forum that you are passionate about you can have a great forum

[Kay]

Ahh I missed you saying about sitting your exams, Silent, sorry! I'd have wished you lots of luck too. Glad to hear they went well and the forum's coming along good too. :)

I got an email the other day saying the killerstartups competition is nearly finished so I'm crossing fingers and toes for you. Best of luck! :)

[silent_thunder]

Ahh I missed you saying about sitting your exams, Silent, sorry! I'd have wished you lots of luck too. Glad to hear they went well and the forum's coming along good too. :)

I got an email the other day saying the killerstartups competition is nearly finished so I'm crossing fingers and toes for you. Best of luck! :)

thanks hehe

[silent_thunder]

Traffic is picking up 500 UV per day sometimes more!! Promotion campaign has just started!! Will let you know How many convert into members. Worked really hard this week!!

[Fergal]

Congratulations Silent, looks like life is going great for you on all fronts.

500 Unique Visitors per day is fantastic, if you can keep up that kind of growth rate, you will have a massive forum, in the very near future.

[silent_thunder]

Finally after weeks of testing SEO mod is running in the forum

It will rival VB seo in its custom keywords and topic title injection:)

:D

Opensource rocks

[Fergal]

Well done with that. I've just had a look at your forum and the URLs are very search engine friendly. Does the SEO Mod create a site map?

I also see that you have added a ShoutBox, how is that working out for you? I've seen some comments that a ShoutBox can actually be damaging to a forum.

[Kay]

I also see that you have added a ShoutBox, how is that working out for you? I've seen some comments that a ShoutBox can actually be damaging to a forum.

Interesting, I hadn't heard that. I know we used shoutboxes occasionally when we'd build Joomla sites and have a forum too but never integrated it into the forum. I'm guessing it's because they'd shout rather than make forum posts perhaps? The odd spammer would use the shoutbox I found but I'd just delete them.

I like seeing them integrated into forums -it's nice to be able to just wave at someone occasionally when you see them online same time as you or just post a quick hi if it's a flying visit where you don't want to start a thread. :)

[silent_thunder]

Well done with that. I've just had a look at your forum and the URLs are very search engine friendly. Does the SEO Mod create a site map?

I also see that you have added a ShoutBox, how is that working out for you? I've seen some comments that a ShoutBox can actually be damaging to a forum.

Shoutbox on a forum with more than 1000 members can be server intensive but I dont think it affects the forums performance in thsi stage of development.

I BAF should have a shoutbox too. I think it gives members a community feel and gives them to share a moment. Once your forum gets too big remove the shoutbox and go a chat..well I have installed both the chat and also shoutbox

Yes it creates a sitemap too, .htaccess and also robots.txt.

You can edit all the the three from admin panel

[Fergal]

The comments of seen on shout boxes on forums include the following;

Pros
Members like it and it attracts them to re-visit the forum
It helps keep threads on topic because members will use the shout box rather than the forum, when going off topic.

Cons
Members shout in the shout box instead of posting, hence it decreases forum activity
Spam use, including code insertions that can re-direct visitors from your site.

Similar to what Silent said, I've seen comments that shout boxes work well on small forums but are not very useful for large forums.

Probably the best thing to do would be to monitor your forum activity for some time. Then install the shout box and continue to monitor activity. If it helps leave it there, if it is harmful remove it.

[Nazreen]

I've also been seeing forums with shoutbox of late. But in most of these forums, what's written in the shoutbox isn't even helpful or applicable to most of the members. Also, most of the members using the shoutbox are just abusing it so the other members will just ignore what's written there. If you count the number of "Hi's" and "Hello's" in the shoutbox, it would probably account to more than 90%.

In my opinion, the shoutbox should only be authorized for admins and mods and to be used only for making and broadcasting important news announcements. This way, no one will miss out reading these.

[Kay]

I've also been seeing forums with shoutbox of late. But in most of these forums, what's written in the shoutbox isn't even helpful or applicable to most of the members. Also, most of the members using the shoutbox are just abusing it so the other members will just ignore what's written there. If you count the number of "Hi's" and "Hello's" in the shoutbox, it would probably account to more than 90%.

In my opinion, the shoutbox should only be authorized for admins and mods and to be used only for making and broadcasting important news announcements. This way, no one will miss out reading these.

Well, it depends what your definition of abusing it is, I guess. :) If I had one on my site and saw my members using it to say hi and hello, I'd be perfectly happy with that.

What I see as positive is it lets other members/guests know the forum's active with visitors even if they'd been there to read rather than join in a topic. Not everyone posts in a thread when they drop in, but they may give a virtual wave in a shoutbox.

If there's some banter there or lots of hellos, it also gives the visitor an immediate sense of the friendliness of a community - after all, if you didn't like the people in the community you wouldn't bother saying a quick hi to them.

On the negative side, I know myself I've seen shoutboxes where people were arguing or being mean to each other and I didn't take a step further into that community. First impressions are everything. In fact if I was the admin there, I'd have shut it down or deleted their shouts rather than allow that to be seen by visitors. If you've two hundred great members but two bad ones are fighting in the shoutbox, it gives a distorted view of the whole community when it's one of the first (and maybe last) things newcomers see.

A shoutbox to me is more a casual plaything than anything. It's down to the individual admins how they want it to be used of course but the one thing it does need is to be monitored well.

You're right Nazreen, it could be used for announcements and some do use it for that. However most forums have an inbuilt news fader which can be activated at the top of the main index of their board. It will display announcements in rotation so no one misses them. I think that's a waste installing a shoutbox if you're just going to use it just for that.

[Fergal]

Food for thought there Kay, your post would very much suggest that a shout box is a great means of helping to build a community spirit. I'll bear that in mind for BAF.

[silent_thunder]

Food for thought there Kay, your post would very much suggest that a shout box is a great means of helping to build a community spirit. I'll bear that in mind for BAF.

I think you should have a chat for BAF and not a shoutbox.

[Nazreen]

What I see as positive is it lets other members/guests know the forum's active with visitors even if they'd been there to read rather than join in a topic. Not everyone posts in a thread when they drop in, but they may give a virtual wave in a shoutbox.

You're right Kay. Some people might just be dropping by and if they didn't have time to make a post, they might just go to the shoutbox and say hello to the other members of the community. I didn't see it that way at first.


I think you should have a chat for BAF and not a shoutbox.

Why do you say that a chat would be better for BAF than a shoutbox silent_thunder?

[silent_thunder]

Shoutbox is resource intensive and also very spam friendly in large forums. Instead BAF can have chat which I found very useful for members who want the feature to discuss. Chat means a separate page so only the users who really need it will use it.

Plus BAF had a couple of DB errors in the past that may be due to server load

[Fergal]

...BAF had a couple of DB errors in the past that may be due to server load

That was due to a problem with our hosting provider, thankfully the issue is now resolved.

[Kay]

Glad you guys found something helpful in my post. :) Chat is good too but the hard thing is arranging it when everyone can attend. If you've got a board where there's a more or less continuous flow of members in and out all day, chat works well. Quite a few will pop in just to see who's around. But if your board's in the fledgling stage and still pretty quiet, it can be more disheartening for people to go in say three times in a row and no one's there. No matter how busy it gets in the coming weeks and months, they don't bother trying it again because of that and will tell anyone who listens it's because it's always empty. Strange but true and I speak from experience.

So you could either arrange scheduled chats (say at a certain time once a week or in the evenings on a regular basis) or you designate somewhere on the forum where a member can leave a post saying " I'm in chat just now", so anyone swinging would know and pop in if they felt like it. If they leave chat before anyone comes in, they just edit their post or add to the thread to reflect that.

I found in the beginning stages of a forum, the latter worked better because with people in all different time zones, it's not easy (but not impossible either) to schedule a time that suits them all (almost). There would always be someone left out the loop through no fault of their own just because of where they lived. However if you can leave a post, you just might bump into someone virtually that's on the forum same time as you.

Fergal, we have a chat room system installed at Cuckleburr. If you want to arrange to have a chat in there sometime, that'd be no problem. You're all welcome to use that to meet up sometime btw, just register for it free here. (http://www.cuckleburr.com/chat/register.php) Then login here. (http://www.cuckleburr.com/chat/login.php)

If there's enough interest I can create a room for BAF but since I've never promoted the chat after the installation it doesn't get used much, so the General Chat room's free there 99.5% of the time.

[Fergal]

Thanks Kay. What software do you use for that chat application?

[silent_thunder]

Nice post Kay, Are you using a Chat were users can use open ID's?? I found a interesting chat where users can use MSN or AOl Id's for chatting it may increase forum traffic wouldn't it??

[Fergal]

...I found a interesting chat where users can use MSN or AOl Id's for chatting...

Silent can you please provide me with a link for that, I'd be very interested in it for another project I'm working on?

[Kay]

Thanks Kay. What software do you use for that chat application?

It's Blab, Fergal but to be honest it's pricey in my book (I think it was 75 euros) and wouldn't be our first choice to use again because we find it can be slow at times. We bought it a while back so we use it though because I grudge paying for something and not lol.

Overall I prefer Flashchat (http://www.tufat.com/script2.htm) which you can get for 5 bucks. I'm just more comfortable with it overall because I've used it a lot. I like it because it gives users the ability to create their own rooms, public or private, on the fly. The rooms disappear after they're empty a while, so you don't need to go in and clear them out. You can also save a transcript of chats which makes it handy for holding meetings in private where you don't need to take minutes.It also have a live support functionality you can implement it for, but I've never tried it in that respect.

Mike's favorite is X7 (http://www.x7chat.com/), which is free and open source. Every time we install a chat somewhere, we're in opposite camps on which one to put in. :D

[Kay]

Nice post Kay, Are you using a Chat were users can use open ID's?? I found a interesting chat where users can use MSN or AOl Id's for chatting it may increase forum traffic wouldn't it??

Thanks Silent! No, it's a chat script we host on our own site that needs to be installed on our server. Users have to register for it. Having an open ID one may increase traffic as people are basically lazy and will avoid any steps they can like registering but to me it would depend on the chat's cost if it'd be worth it.

Logic tells me that if they really want to chat, they won't mind taking a minute to register and if I can pay $5 for a chat instead of $150 that keeps everyone happy, it makes more business sense to pay the $5.

[Fergal]

Thanks for those links Kay, they look like great applications. The first site you link to appears to have a lot of useful and practical scripts for $5.

[Kay]

Thanks for those links Kay, they look like great applications. The first site you link to appears to have a lot of useful and practical scripts for $5.

Yep, they're well known here for that. I'm betting he's made a fortune because people think "well, it's only five bucks..." and will try it then if it's not ideal, it's no huge loss. Out of all the things they offer, I've only used the Flashchat myself but as I said I like it a lot. It has the usual admin/moderator capabilities too I should add, so you still have control of the room if you need to rid the chat of any troublemakers etc. You can also create your own skin for it to match your site. All in all, it's a good app but I can't vouch for the quality of the other ones.

[silent_thunder]

I am here to share the news PR updated yesterday and My forum got PR2 from PR0 which means whatever content that is going into the forum are good and the tips that you guys gave are excellent.

Thanks and happy new year everyone:D

[Kay]

That's great silent, congrats! All mine got upped to PR3's so I'm pleased too. It was a nice surprise because I didn't know Google was already doing the PR updates for this time around. :)

[Nazreen]

Congratulations to both of you Kay and Silent_thunder. Job well done.

I think that you've made a big leap from PR0 to PR2 Silent. And what's more amazing is that your forum was only launched a couple of months back.

[silent_thunder]

hey thanks nazreen lot of hardwork has gone into making the forum into PR2 i havent invested in anythin. Waiting for my exams to get over to really get my forum the boost it needs.SEO is the best in the business that along with DP members have made this possible.Some of the service in DP is just world class. the directory submission and link building stuff. I did most of the submissions and building myself, But I did hire a guy called abhi from DP he was great.

Thanks to fergal, kay, nazreen, pendelton, swastik and everybody who shared their knowledge without which I can do nothing

[silent_thunder]

Reporting On the forums Progress to serve as an motivation to others.

The forum is now a social network with 1000 members, a dedicated store , Video sharing and Blog

This has been another success that I would like to share with BAF users. And once again say thanks to hose who were at the start
:)

[Fergal]

Thanks for the update silent_thunder and great to see you back here again. I'm delighted to hear that your forum has been so successful and is running well for you.

You can also find some great advice and help to promote your forum at Forum Promotion (http://forumpromotion.net/index.php).