This year is actually our 5th year anniversary, i think around June 7th if i remember correctly when Hostclub.net went under and quite a few migrated over here.
A lot have changed since that time to say the least. In the beginning, it was quite small, then it quickly grew before most of the forum left to Doc's forum. The activity these days aren't at the same level, but here are my two cents on our past, and possibly what you can expect to see here in 2009 and forward.
The "market" for a forum has become much more diluted also as everyone has a forum these days, so it is harder to gain a small but loyal gang of posters, but there are some good things happening
First of all. Thank you to everyone that visits and posts here. I have gained some really good friends while running this little site.
Now the good things:
1 - Our BOINC effort is helping our visibility. We are being watched, and in time when we gain a couple of places, people are going to come.
2 - A Norwegian hardware retailer that i have started a good relationship with is going to send his computer troubled customers over here for help. Maybe he would like to comment himself if he read this.
The bad things
1 - We don't have much links anywhere. Most links goes back to the old forum before the crash.
2 - 5 to 10 years ago. you could get away by "advertising" your site on other forums. Nowadays, this will most likely get you banned so this is a tactic that i don't recommend to anyone.
So with this out there, i have started to think a bit since the site is soon is going to be upgraded to the latest and greatest from simplemachines forum which we have used since it was in early beta. This allows a lot more options and features, and also a lot more customization. It's currently in Beta 4, so i am guessing that the final version will be released around summer.
I am not going to go all out or anything, just do a couple of things that we've done before, but more frequent:
1 - Competitions. Our little Christmas competition was great. Not many participants, but those that did enter did try their best to win
Unless i go personally bankrupt during my job hunt, you'll see more of this.
2 - Mini-reviews. Huge sites have employees doing their hardware testing with 20 pages of information. Sure, they're great if you understand what they say, but there are lots of people that don't understand the lingo, so if i get my hands on a little piece of technology that i think is a great deal, i'll share them. If time allows it, i am going to also write little mini-guides that might be of value.
3 More Lounging - Picture threads, funny things, rants and raves. Just more fun.
4. Some people have asked me privately for a Norwegian section again since they're afraid their English isn't good enough. Well, it should be up and running in 5 minutes.
I am checking the forum at least 4-5 times a day, so we're not going anywhere
If you'd like to help out a bit, just let me know
I'll celebrate a little beforehand thanking you all for 5 great years, and i really hope that the next 5 will be equally so
