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View Full Version : We're celebrating a week now



cbscreative
08-15-2008, 03:13 PM
This new SBF opened its doors last week Thursday, so today marks a full week of being publically available all day. Though there is still work to do, we have made tremendous progress and quickly got past the issues we were having.

Thank you everyone for joining us and making this a huge success. The word is getting out because of the efforts of you telling others. What is more important than our numbers is the fact that this forum has restored quality. Some of our members here were inactive on the old forum for months, but are now back with us. Those who were still left were frustrated, and that's why we're here now. We also have members here who were not part of the old forum. Together, we have made this a useful forum and valuable resource for small busienss people.

I am pleased, and we are well on our way to having the best small business forum on the Internet. The quality of members here is the magic that makes this place work. I believe we have not only recaptured what was lost on the old forum that made it great at one time, I think we are doing better. Actually, you are doing better. This is what will attract more members to this forum. Our numbers will grow because of the quality.

Again, thank you everyone.

I welcome you to speak up on what you like here so the other members will know how much this is appreciated. Feel free to tell us what topics are helping the most, or anything else that is making this forum useful to you. If you have a question not being answered, start a thread about it.

billbenson
08-15-2008, 04:11 PM
Congrats! You guys have done a lot of work and had a lot of success in a short period of time.

KristineS
08-15-2008, 04:32 PM
I hadn't realized it had been a week already. Pretty good first week I'd say.

vangogh
08-15-2008, 04:36 PM
Thanks everyone. It's been a great start so far. What's impressed me the most is the quality of the conversations we're having. I realize it's because we have so many quality people here, but it's amazing to see the signal dominating the noise.

We certainly have a long way to go to get to where we want to be. Hopefully in the near future we'll begin to pick up search traffic. The forum is getting indexed so it should be anytime now. Ideally that will bring some new members and new questions and different points of view with it and help us grow more.

One thing I would ask everyone is if you can create more new threads it would be great. Most of us are the types to respond to other threads instead of starting new ones. I'm the same way. But new threads mean new pages to be indexed and more traffic, etc. If you have a question or just curious what people think about something ask away in a new thread.

Thanks again for making our first week a great one.

By the way I think we're over a week. It was last Wednesday when the doors opened so today should be day 9.

cbscreative
08-15-2008, 04:58 PM
Thanks for clarifying, vangogh. I know we were scheduled to open on Thurs night and you accidently opened the door when you installed a plugin, but we have never regretted the early opening. Many people were enthusiastically waiting, so even though it was ahead of schedule and we had some bugs to swat, it has been a great week (or 9 days).

vangogh
08-15-2008, 08:33 PM
Yep, Thursday night was the originally scheduled opening date and then next thing we knew we were live someone Wednesday morning/afternoon. Either way we had a one week birthday recently and it has been a good week+

orion_joel
08-16-2008, 07:56 AM
It has been a good week, i think that i have been more active in the last week on this forum then at any point on the old forum, not quite sure why at all though.

Steve B
08-16-2008, 08:03 AM
Me too Joel.

I think I feel some sort of comittment to making this work. We need lots of posts to keep it interesting for people so they keep coming back. The three admins. are obviously posting their little hearts out in order to keep things fresh and I want to help them out. I think VG is averaging over 50 per day - that has got to be eating into his normal duties!

As we grow the membership it will be even better as we get new perspectives on things.

Leatherneck
08-16-2008, 08:32 AM
Congrats folks, In some ways it seems like a long time ago because so many of the members where on the old forum several years ago when it was a good community of people.

Aaron Hats
08-16-2008, 09:46 AM
Congrats on a great first week. By the way, did the last person out of the old forum remember to shut the lights off? ;)

KristineS
08-16-2008, 09:51 AM
Thank you to everyone for helping us keep things fresh and interesting. We really appreciate the help.

cbscreative
08-16-2008, 10:09 AM
Congrats on a great first week. By the way, did the last person out of the old forum remember to shut the lights off? ;)
That may not be an original joke, but I still got a good laugh out of it. Thanks, Aaron.

cbscreative
08-16-2008, 10:12 AM
It has been a good week, i think that i have been more active in the last week on this forum then at any point on the old forum, not quite sure why at all though.
There's been a lot of activity here, and we appreciate everyone's efforts. Joel, I think you are the highest post level of any non-admin. As for vangogh, that man is a posting machine. He must be a whole lot faster on the keyboard than I am. I don't know how he does it.

vangogh
08-16-2008, 12:15 PM
@Joel - agreed. I noticed we have been more active here than we were there, especially on weekends.

@SteveB - I think others are feeling that same sense of commitment. We have been posting a lot. I'm still not sure how I'm averaging 50 posts/day. I've been leaving the forum up in my browser all day and working in other tabs. Whenever I have a few minutes I'll check what's going on here and reply to a few posts.

I think there's also a sense of excitement over the change. While for most of us the recent downtime was the last straw I think people have been steadily leaving the forum for a lot longer and are happy to see the community in a new home.

@Mak - Thanks. I noticed we managed to draw you back into the community.

@Aaron - Funny. Old joke or not it's still a good one. I think the owners of the old forum turned the lights out a long time ago.

Thanks again everyone.

billbenson
08-16-2008, 12:56 PM
Ya, I've been more active here as well trying to help get this going. I was trying to think of a new thread to start per VG's request last night but got brain freeze.

cbscreative
08-16-2008, 12:58 PM
I do exactly the same thing, vangogh, I usually leave a tab for this forum open all day and check back regularly. I used to just keep using the bookmark, but with issues I was having before, I got used to the tab approach even though I'm not having the issues any more.

KristineS
08-16-2008, 12:59 PM
Brain freeze happens sometimes. I think we all get it.

vangogh
08-16-2008, 01:10 PM
It's funny, because most of us here aren't usually thread starters. We wait for someone else to ask a question and then respond. I read a lot of blogs daily and weekly so what I've been doing is anytime I see something I think might be good as a conversation starter I'll write a few quick thoughts about the post and link to it. Some have gone over well and some not so much.

Kristine seems to be doing well getting discussions going. Most of your threads are getting a good amount of response.

Steve B
08-16-2008, 03:05 PM
I would't call mine a brain freeze. I just don't have that many original thoughts in a day!

KristineS
08-16-2008, 04:08 PM
Kristine seems to be doing well getting discussions going. Most of your threads are getting a good amount of response.

I think you meant me. Good to know I'm not the only one who types too fast and misspells my name.

I think I start threads for the same reason I like to ask questions in conversation. I like to find out what makes people tick. The best way to do that is to ask a question.

Although you've started quite a few threads yourself, Vangogh.

vangogh
08-16-2008, 04:25 PM
I did mean you and fortunately I have the ability to edit my own typo so now no one knows. Unless you re-edit my edit and put the typo back.

I like knowing what makes people tick too. Some of the threads I started were just simple questions to see what people thought.

cbscreative
08-16-2008, 04:31 PM
Shame on you, vangogh, covering up the evidence. I wondered why that didn't make sense.

Marcomguy
08-16-2008, 07:11 PM
So this is just day 10? Seems like a lot longer. But that may be, as someone else pointed out, because we're just continuing the conversation from the other place, i.e., the-forum-that-must-not-be-named.

Pretty good start, I must say!

vangogh
08-16-2008, 09:04 PM
I think it's because we've all be talking for a lot longer than 10 days, but yeah, that's all it's been here.

Evan
08-16-2008, 09:19 PM
Wow, it does feel longer. But there is no turning back!

I am certain somebody turned off the light on the old forum, because anybody who arrives there is going to be left in the dark.

vangogh
08-16-2008, 09:22 PM
I am certain somebody turned off the light on the old forum, because anybody who arrives there is going to be left in the dark.

I think it's more a case of all the light bulbs burning out and no one is taking the time to buy a few more and replace them.

Evan
08-16-2008, 09:28 PM
Routine maintenance is much cheaper in the long run than a complete break down. Why don't people understand that, lol.

vangogh
08-16-2008, 09:53 PM
I think some people hope that don't have to do anything and that things will simply run themselves without any attention.

KristineS
08-16-2008, 10:04 PM
I won't go and replace the typo, although cbscreative is right, not my response won't make sense. I guess it's all revisionist history now.

Evan
08-16-2008, 10:09 PM
It's funny, because most of us here aren't usually thread starters.

That explains my [lack of a] post count.

vangogh
08-16-2008, 10:20 PM
Kristine (or should I say Kristein?) and it's so perfect how my post falls on another page so my admission to the crime requires an extra click to see.

orion_joel
08-17-2008, 12:09 AM
I think the feeling that it has been much longer probably comes from being familiar with the other members here. When you first visit a forum it can take a few days, weeks even to get your head around who everyone is that are regular posters. However a large part of the members her we all know from previous forum. So that getting to know everyone stage is not so much of a hurdle here.

As for posting, i am trying to participate as much as possible, i like to see a high post count on my name and also see it going up quickly. But at the same time i try to not post every where, because seriously i don't have valuable comments to share on every topic and think i need to limit myself.

KristineS
08-17-2008, 09:45 AM
I think there are always some forums that people feel more comfortable posting in because they feel more knowledgeable about those subjects. I know I've post a lot in the Marketing section because that's my area of expertise.

I think we'll eventually attract enough of a cross section of people that we'll have posters who naturally gravitate to every forum.

cbscreative
08-27-2008, 07:19 PM
It's been 3 weeks since the new SBF launched. Without even being listed on search engines, we now have 55 members and over 3200 posts. In the last several days, the posting activity has subsided compared to our levels shortly after launch. This comes as no surprise, but even with the lower numbers, we are still more active than other SB forums, including the old SBF. Best of all, these are quality posts with good, active participation. I'd rather see quality than quantity, and we're getting both.

Everyone here is doing an awesome job. We're getting referrals, blog and link traffic, and some are still finding us through the old forum. We're getting well indexed by search engines even though they haven't ranked us yet. Once we start showing high in results pages, I think the momentum will really take off.

That's a lot of progress in only 3 weeks. Thanks everyone.

billbenson
08-27-2008, 08:07 PM
Actually, Steve, while what you did was mostly done out of frustration I suspect, it was pretty cleaver.

This forum is also more useful to me than the old forum because not surprisingly its more slanted toward web stuff which is what I do. It is interesting, though to see what other types of business people do as well even though it doesn't directly apply to me.

vangogh
08-27-2008, 08:10 PM
Has it really been 3 weeks? Wow.

Things have slowed, but we're still off to a good start and I'll add my thanks to everyone. I've been amazed at the quality of the conversations going on around here, though when I stop to think who's having that conversation, I guess it shouldn't really be a surprise.

Bill I'm glad we have more web stuff here too. I never cared how on the old forum all the web related stuff was pretty much lumped together under one forum.