If anyone cares, or wants to make the forum grow... I think advertising is the way to go.
On google it could be done rather cheaply...probably between 5-10 cents a visitor
each of those could be targeted to certain audiences that would apply...and the ads could be refined/changed completely as some advertising data was gathered (i've got a semi-working tracking type thingy that works with Google)
The downfall of this is of course money. Personally, if it was me who was responsible for this site, I would be willing to invest at LEAST $100 into it at first.
After looking at the statistics/data from the $100, I think that that would be enough information to determine whether or not you should consider even continuing (probably wouldn't be enough to make any money back...at all).
If the decision is to go ahead...I'd invest at least $400 additional dollars before calling it quits--as a bad idea.
Before doing any of this though, I'd overhaul the site. You might like it ...or whatever, because it's 'nubblies', but sometimes change is necessary...and doing something like this would require a change before any thoughts of putting money into it should be considered...
There are several steps I would go through that I have in mind--that would make nubblies significantly larger. If anyone wants to know specifically just for the hell of it...I'll write them out.
Large growth, and repeat visitors is an awesome asset to have (which is what a forum is). I also have several ideas on how to start making revenue from the site (to continue growth, and increase revenue)
If anyone wants to take the risk...it could always be run past Orgazmo. Of course I would want some of the profits since I would be doing the work that brings in the cash...
Maybe a donation fund or something should be started that would be dedicated to progressing the forum forwards...
A warning about all of this though, if it was actually carried out, and worked, it would never again be the 'warsaw only' basically type of forum it is now.
Overall, off the top of my head weighing the different factors I'm taking into consideration--
Investing $100, and seeing that it won't work period...is going to be a $100 loss.
If it were to get to $100, and there was some potential, it's bumped up to $500 total investment.
With that, I'd say there is probably about a 15-25% chance that you would be able to get your money back within a year and a half.
probably 30% chance that you would get more than half your money back--period (it doesn't work)
remaining percentage---would probably lose all of your money.
Personally, I would do it. $100 isn't much to find out if there is a possibility. From that point you would be able to weigh the risk a LOT easier, and you would have a much better estimate of the above.
Even $500 is not a HUGE loss, if you look at the possibilies if it works. Could be several hundred to thousands of dollars in revenue/year, without having to do anything once it gets rolling...
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