Going beyond the bulletin board.

[Wayne Luke]

So what have you done to go beyond the bulletin board and attract more members?

Common add-ons are chat, email, and file storage... Where do you go to breech the envelope?

 

[N9ne]

A lot of forums go for what you mentioned. Sub domains seem popular, contests seem to bring in a lot of people too, provided the prize is something everyone wants .

Also, a site can be added, IMO this is the best thing that can be added to accompany a forum (although the site should come first, then the forum). A site provides a lot more content and another 'thing' for people to visit.

 

[jw791]

Probably the most successful add-in has been the picture uploader I've added. Obviously on a pets site, people love to share pictures, and given my demographic of non-computer whizzes, the step-by-step instructions really help new folks post pictures.

I don't allow picture attachments, as I don't want binaries clogging up the db.

 

[wizard1974uk]

I'm thinking about adding e-mail, I am looking into an arcade.

The only problem I had with the arcade on my last board was that I had loads of members online, but most of them weren't posting on the board, they were just there to play on the arcade.

 

[cozone]

I have an arcade, and I just started a message board/forum top sites web ring. The web ring has helped the most but I am having trouble getting a few people to add the small vote button to their site and I can't understand why. It's very tiny and I am not picky about where they put it. The more votes they get the longer they stay on the front page, they also increase their position by the number of hits in or out their button generates.

Since I don't charge anything to join I have just been removing those who do not put the button on their forum.

 

[Kathy]

Lets see...photo gallery is a good add-on which my community enjoys. We also integrated phpmycards (I think that was the name of the old script...don't think its being released now but it worked!) and my premium members get to send postcards that we created using the integration. We used to have a chatroom which worked but was a legal liability for our site so we took it down (also have live one on one support hooked up but removed it...)

I've thought it would be fun to have some games (solataire or group) to have a score area to keep track of highest scores but not sure its possible. Might be fun.

 

[sabret00the]

you got some great add-ons there Kathy

i added a Gallery, Arcade, Confession Box and Journal System system which each hold ther own and my users love, although the chat room is dead, i'm thinking of adding a java chat to try and make it more popular allowing premium users to make their own rooms.

i also wanna add a file server for sigs, i'll see what vb.org has to offer in that region one of these days.

 

[Magicman]

If the people are just spending time in your arcade, maybe you could at least make some money from some banner ads there....

 

[sabret00the]

but that would be more a revenue increasing process rather than member attracting.

 

[Wayne Luke]

Revenue needs to increase at the same pace as membership.