So why did you decide to open a forum if your area was over saturated? What was the driving force to open it even though there were tons of other, bigger forums in your area? As for me, I'll never get to open a forum on what I truly enjoy, places like GameSpot, IGN, etc all have huge communities, so it's just pointless for me. Then there's places like Overclock.net, HardForums.com, etc that cover the technology part. So, what made you do it?
Well it's hard to say without bashing another site but just say I was looking to create a more friendly environmental board. I was also looking to push a more correct terminology of my field of interest or hobby.
There were already 2 major boards in my small niche before I started Umpire-Empire. Creating a better environment was at the top of my list too. But I also wanted to offer features other sites don't, I wanted to be more than just a forum.
Because of the users. I saw on another site some one asking if there is really more space to become a big board. MY thought was, is there only 1 successful board in the same niche? No, there are many. There could be one that is more active, but each board to it's own. They have different admins, different ways to make a board successful. That there are many that doesn't mean there couldn't be another successful board, it means it will be harder. ^^ What would it be if I don't try, I promised my users we will be top again, in the over saturated anime niche.
It's what I love. Just because there are other FF Fansites with millions of posts, does not mean I'm deterred from doing a site I enjoy.
Because there will always be somebody else that creates one in an over saturated area that will become just as big, so why not let it be me/you? The tile forum was our first success, there was one other online in the US/CA called the JohnBridge forum that's huge and still is. Though there was never a UK specific one. I worked for a tile setting training centre (tiling training centre in the Queen's English) and we setup one to direct trainee's to after they completed their course, though as we sold tools and training it rendered a lot of the advice biased. So when I parted I setup one that was independent and it worked. Now there are several though we're still the only independent one. Far too much work needs to go into making such a niche forum bigish so unless you're using the members as potential customers then there's no point. Though I did it and ran it at a loss for a long time and now I'm pleased to say we're sponsored by some of the leading companies in the UK tile market. As a result we've done it for other trades too, and although they're not making much money they are getting popular and are attracting interest from big companies from within their trade type. We plan to make 100 forums during 2010 (yeah, I know) and I'm hoping half take off, and then half of those attract good sponsorship. Those that don't appear to be working or aren't ranking in search engines well and quickly, for whatever reason, I'll close and use the license to open the next. So we might not have 100 online as such, but would have ventured through 100 topics. So don't boast about your forum being unique and doing well else you find a comitted competitor (joke).
