Forum for Hobby or for Money?

[art247]

I've ever built a forum by phpbb for my self in the past but I got failed because I got too many problems to manage and grow a forum. It's too difficult for me.
what about you? have you ever built a forum for yourself or join a staff from other forums and what are your purposes to join a forum, hobby or for money? or you are combining both of them?
I think that will be interesting to know your thoughts about that!

 

[brotherZ]

It's hard to make it with a forum nowadays with the advent of Facebook and Social Networking. Most forums fail, so you are in the majority. I ran a couple of forums but was never able to get them to take off.
Most people start forums in order to make money.

 

[Cedric]

for hobby.

 

[art247]

art247

For hobby then where is money to maintain your forum for a long time?
i.e money for domain, hosting, advertising or hiring services to help your forum grow?
I'm doubting that.

 

[Max Pen]

For a hobby. Making money off forums is wrong if that is your main goal. That is just my opinion however.

 

[NaturalWriter]

I find for me it's mostly hobby, as I thoroughly enjoy the comraderie of the members and staff. On some of the other forums I am a moderated/member, some of the perks are to help with earning money, but mostly it's to be a part of team where you get to help others, volunteering.

I've been doing this kind of work for a while, but more steadily over the past couple of years. I really enjoy it.

 

[ron13315]

for both, since 2006 ive been active in many forum and I earn $ even just a regular member. I join forum to learn, enjoy and ofcourse to earn. Or let me say to learn and use what ive learned to earn.

 

[ClassifiedWarrior]

Forums are very difficult to start from scratch. You are better off buying a well known forum that has tons of actives and great SEO.

The reason here is that no one likes to join dead forums. So starting out can be very challenging when keeping members active. It will take a large initial cost to grow the community but once you get past that stage, anything is possible.

Another thing is that a lot of forum ideas are pretty much taken. If you are looking to start a marketing forum, there are already 10 decent ones that control like 90% of the market. The best way to go about this is research and planning. Pick a small niche, very small and grow on that before you expand to other areas.

 

[MightWeb]

I haven't actually started a forum, but I've managed a lot of existing forums. The forums I managed had a userbase due to their niche - one would be an official and endorsed forum by the brand-company we ran it for, as an example. That helps to grow the userbase rather quickly as you get easy PR.

Starting a forum from scratch is very, very hard - not to say impossible. People will not join a forum that has no threads, no posts, and no active userbase. Starting a forum should be done if you have a clear goal and a source for incoming members - if you don't, then there's no point in opening one.

 

[breadmont]

breadmont

I agree with you, more forums dead because they couldn't maintain their forums by new members and advertising, it needs to have good funds to grow a forum, except you are doing good with SEO or social marketing. Some Admins growing forums by auto tools or software so that forums' dead faster on search engine and with visitors.

 

[Hyuga]

For both of them, but never start a project thinking to get money, start it because you like it and in the future, if you take care of your project, you will have the chance to get some cash too

 

[markdenz]

ive started a forum too for money thou, i believe it will make good money doesnt need to be the next facebook as long as it dominates my niche i am fine

 

[Cookie]

I created my forum as a hobby. I make no money off of it; I don't haveany ads on my site, but I do accept donations, as somebody's gotta pay for web-hosting, the domain name(s), etc.

 

[MrGravyCakes]

Hobby for me. I am passionate about them, you get to meet so many people and building a community is a good feeling. It is good to be able to chat about things that you enjoy with other like minded people.