I have no idea what to set myself

[jamie]

ok, you guys probly gunna be like omg! but i've never tried to set up a community before, if i did i was very young and it failed.. lol

Well i set my forums up yesterday and i've been looking for ppl to help me with the project, is this a good idea or a bad idea?
I dont have any money i can invest, so its going to be free..

I was just wondering what kind of target should i try to set myself in the 1st month,
How many members should i aim for?
Should i aim for a certain number of topics or post?

Im looking to develop a website for the forums but with the forums taking all my time i havent really started it and i have to teach myself the code aswell, so the prospects are not very high at all, but i am the kinda person that always throws myself in to the deep-end just because i love to challenge myself and i always seek out to do things the best i can even tho currently im not that skilled..

Get back to me guys, thx for the advice in advance.

Jamie

[SoftWareRevue]

is this a good idea or a bad idea?All ideas start from somewhere. Good or bad, they always spring forth from one's dreams. It's hard to forsee what dreams behold.

Did you think about what your community would be about before you launched it? Do you have a passion for the topic?

There are no bad ideas. However, there are ideas that go badly.

What's your idea? :)

I was just wondering what kind of target should i try to set myself in the 1st monthI think we need an Attainable Goals article here. :)

For, if you want to reach goals, you need to set goals that are reachable. Setting goals and failing can give cause for concern. That's about all I'm going to say about it for now. It'll be better as its own topic. :)

[jamie]

Ok, i suppose i better explain what type of community im trying to create..

Basically its going to be a british community, not for anyother reason that its based on british music trends (not becuase i dislike other contries just to clear the air)
I want to create a community based on the alternative music genre where members can find out when new material from their favourite bands is being released without having to research it themselves, this is very time consuming. I also hope to give unsigned bands abit of publicity and the reason i created the community is "its all about the members" they will ultimately control bands being reveiwed etc and how the forum will begin to shape over time, but as of now im just trying to lay some foundation

That is the main structure of the forum as yet, i have some great expansion forums to add (i think) but they will not be added if it doesnt take off.

I do hope to develpoe a website when its gets started but finding interest in the forum is the hardest thing im finding. Im kind of desperate for members, but the one thing i wont do is make out im desperate for them!
The site i hope to look like this:
http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c343/jamiecarter500/newestlayoutcopy-1.jpg

Jamie

[Jan]

Sounds promising :) You could probably grab the British top 40 lists on a weekly basis and post them. That will get google working for you. If you have a few bands you want to feature, do some research and post about them. Again, SEO friendly. Join a few music related forums and answer questions where you can and have a link to your site in your signature. Same goes for non music related forums, there is always someone around who likes the same style of music you like.

Good luck with it :)

[jamie]

I feel like if i get the site up and running it may pull more people in that just having the forums, but i'd like to start with the forums so there a small community there and then add the site,

But hey you cant have everything, ill continue to post on the forum i may get a few members.. thx for your advice everyone :D its appretiated

[jamie]

well, im kinda in despesperate need of just one member, the improvement of the forums from the other project member opened my eyes and i noticed there are other things i can add etc and other sources i can use..

but i've only seen him once and he's only posted once so far, im just in vital need of 1-2 members, anyway of pulling a few in within the next few days, im out of ideas, i think im going to have to resort to begging which i really didnt want to resort to..

also, would getting my partially built website online boost the possibility of getting a few members?

[Jan]

It certainly can't hurt to get your site completed and may draw in a few more forum members. Go for it! :beer:

Also place a review request in our site review forum for some more feedback.

[jamie]

hi, thanks for the advice but i've had a change of plans...

by no means i am giving up on the project, but im going to just post lots of content over the next few weeks in my foumr, im also going to just work on my site and get it completed before i start trying to get my community going because im just doing bits here and bobs there and its not going to work, i need to focus all my energy into one area at a time :yak:

I think the hard part will be working out how to organsie my site :S..

Ill still post about around here cause i quite like it here and i may give you a few updates. i just hope i can get it organised properly lol

plz close this topic so i can mumble any more about this lol

thx

[jamie]

hi guys, i've been working on mmy community and so far so good..

After 3 forum relaunches and lots of work on my site, my forum is slowly getting increasing traffic, so far i have 8 members and together we've made over 162 posts in about a week or so. I've gone for phpbb forum software as its the easiest to use and install and its pretty customisable.

Saturday my forum say up to 800 page views and 22 new visitors, but unfortunately i still dont beleive the forum content is enough to really grab ppl, but that all come with time and hard work on content i guess.

I've bought myself a domain http://www.incomingsound.co.uk and im still using my freehosting because theres no use having something im not going to use yet.

As for the website i've been touching it up and i'd love to know what u gys think in comparison with the picture i posted at an earlier date... link Here (http://www.cartersonline.plus.com/layout2.htm)

if you have any advice on how i can increase my music content i'd love to hear from you and i'd love abit of c&c on the new site layout.

Thanks

Jamie

[Lurker]

Wow! That is looking great Jamie :clap: Have you considered using RSS for music feeds? http://www.worldmusiccentral.org/staticpages/index.php/newsfeed

[lpstong]

If there are no RSS feeds you like, Does your hosting company allow you to have MP3 music on your site. If not you can also go to Myspace. There are many indy bands out there trying to be heard. If you do a few myspace bulletins, or put something up in the classifieds. You may also do a search for British Music as well.

Post exchanges, banner exchanges and text links may help draw more attention to your site.

And from what I see, that you have more than 8 users now(14 total) Which is a good thing. Keep up the good work.

Nice logo though. I was just thinking to myself, what if the target/circles in your logo pulsate. You know music vibration. I dont know how you feel about flash. But it would look kinda of cool though. If anything find a good midi sound if you cant get MP3 tunes/sounds going.

[jamie]

NOt sure about the mp3 streaming but i get 10gb of bandwidth, but that will vanish if i do start streaming.

Im happy you said there are lots of indie bands trying to be heard that means there are many people willing to get there name on the site.. ill look into myspace right away.


"Nice logo though. I was just thinking to myself, what if the target/circles in your logo pulsate. You know music vibration. I dont know how you feel about flash. But it would look kinda of cool though. If anything find a good midi sound if you cant get MP3 tunes/sounds going."

I was thinking the same thing about animating the pulse like i did with the new post icon on the forum..

Also posting this reply is perfect timing because i am about to launch my site in the next few days too.

Thanks for the boost

Jamie

[jamie]

as a report back, i've desided to drop the forum website building and aim towards blogging. ts hard to get people to join an empty forum and even harder to find someone willing to help post content and be dedicated. So i have now turned towards blogging my love and i hope that will bring me some traffic and feedback on the music front.

If it becomes popular I can gear towards creating a forum, but i'd get the opinions of my readers before doing this. If they say no i'd aim to create a second blog and blog about a different topic like movies or games.

Jamie

[SoftWareRevue]

Nice lookin' blog, Jamie!

http://www.incomingsound.co.uk/?p=44 was pretty cool. :cool:

[jamie]

thank you! :D

I shall report back on how it goes, recently i have had a large amountof trouble with hosting the blog and i fear it may have killed my chances of getting a good rating with stumble which i submitted to 1 day before my site went down for over a week and a half (2 hosts failed the second i joined and ns change is lengthy)

But oh well, if i write enough interesting content it may come back one day.

Thanks for the feed back i shall return with more info in a few weeks