My First Forum Site is Online

[Duke]

My first forum is now online. If you get a moment, check it out and let me know how you like the layout and concept for TampaBayTalk.com. Here is a link:

TampaBayTalk.com

The primary reason I am doing a forum for Tampa Bay is that I have a couple of ideas for other locally based internet businesses. Advertising is expensive in a large market like this, so I thought I would build up a free local forum and when (or should I say "if") it reaches critical mass I can use it to promote the Tampa-oriented commercial sites that will follow.

The new forum is PhpBB. I selected that over Invision for one reason only - PhpBB had a skin that I wanted that I think is very appropriate for the Tampa Bay Area. The colors and Indiana Jones look is reminiscent of our top tourist attraction, Busch Gardens. I am still learning my way around PhPBB but it seems to be very easy to use and I have no complaints at all - plus it is free!

I have to give a huge thank you to DNF member AbusiveElusive who installed the board for me, then rescued it today when I tried to make some tweaks (even though I know nothing about php) and wound up knocking the site out completely!. He is fast, does excellent work and installs board software for an exceptionally good price - so I highly recommend him.

I know we have several Tampa Bay area members at DNF, so let me invite all of you locals to register and post whenever you can. We have forums for just about everything. One for visitors and vacationers too - so you don't have to live here to take part.

[bidawinner]

WOW Ron..Had to put my sunglasses on !

Looks great ..just bright..

Good Luck

[zouzas]

Originally posted by Duke
My first forum is now online. If you get a moment, check it out and let me know how you like the layout and concept for TampaBayTalk.com. Here is a link:

TampaBayTalk.com

The primary reason I am doing a forum for Tampa Bay is that I have a couple of ideas for other locally based internet businesses. Advertising is expensive in a large market like this, so I thought I would build up a free local forum and when (or should I say "if") it reaches critical mass I can use it to promote the Tampa-oriented commercial sites that will follow.

The new forum is PhpBB. I selected that over Invision for one reason only - PhpBB had a skin that I wanted that I think is very appropriate for the Tampa Bay Area. The colors and Indiana Jones look is reminiscent of our top tourist attraction, Busch Gardens. I am still learning my way around PhPBB but it seems to be very easy to use and I have no complaints at all - plus it is free!

I have to give a huge thank you to DNF member AbusiveElusive who installed the board for me, then rescued it today when I tried to make some tweaks (even though I know nothing about php) and wound up knocking the site out completely!. He is fast, does excellent work and installs board software for an exceptionally good price - so I highly recommend him.

I know we have several Tampa Bay area members at DNF, so let me invite all of you locals to register and post whenever you can. We have forums for just about everything. One for visitors and vacationers too - so you don't have to live here to take part.

Nice job! and great idea to bring the community together!!

[GiantDomains]

Originally posted by Duke



The new forum is PhpBB. I selected that over Invision

Good decision. PHPbb has many great hacks, and a great support forum.

Good luck!

[Duke]

Thanks guys. The support at PHPbb was also a major plus in choosing them as I am a total forum operation newbie. They have a really extensive help system and support forum as GD noted.

I'm surprised there aren't more community forums around the country. Unlike other mediums, they give everyone an opportunity to have their say. Few people ever get on local TV, most can't get by the screeners on local talk radio and if they do the host will usually drown them out. Getting anything in the papers is tough too and always subject to heavy editing. I think forums should become a huge branch of local media as they have unique characteristics the other media don't have.

It will be very interesting to me to see if I can make it work and gain acceptance. I am redirecting all of my other Tampa oriented domains to it to bring in some traffic. Should be fun!

...and bidawinner, you are SUPPOSED to have to put your sunglasses on - it's a Florida forum!! Now if it was a Minnesota forum (up in your neck of the woods), you would have to put on a parka just to view the damn thing! :-D

[actnow]

Duke, that is a great idea.

Don't forget to offer free banners for restaurants on your site in exchange for free dinners.

Sorry, I'm hungry.

Good luck on your site.

[Duke]

Originally posted by actnow

Don't forget to offer free banners for restaurants on your site in exchange for free dinners.

I like the way you think! :-D

[geoffrey]

Duke,

I once considered a forum to attract the Hispanic market. I finally went with Blog concept. I have three blogs and currently generating 700 visitors per day. One Blog LatinoForum.com has reached a daily level of +500 vsitors. I used the forum name, but blog concept. Other blogs are LatinoBog.com and HispanicBlog.com

I face similar scenario with the cost of marketing to Hispanic market.

PS GoodLuck

Geoffrey

[mole]

Looks great, duke.

[Whois-Search]

Very nice

And because phpbb is free you can now get a lot more domains like NewYorkTalk.com WashingtonTalk.com a make alot more

[WebCat]

Duke, I'd be very interested in your results with phpbb over time. I have installed it a few times and have found it to be a little quirky.

Been considering buying a vBulletin or InfoPop ubb license.

[Duke]

Now you tell me! :-D

So far so good, but it has only been up a couple of days.

[Mr Webname]

I've found phpbb to be very reliable, easy to customise and with excellent support options and forum. I had no experience with forums until a customer recently needed one - I never had a single problem getting it up and customised and things remain faultless.

[Temp]

Good,very beautiful.

[cerebus]

Good job. One relatively important note though. The session id in the URL by default keeps google from indexing forum posts, categories etc. I'm pretty sure there is an option in phpbb to remove that. It will give some problems for a very very small part of your audience (those with cookies disabled), but will give googlebot (among with some other crawlers) the possibility to crawl the forum. An option would be if there is any search engine friendlyness hack available.

My personal favourite forums software would be Vbulletin and InvisionPowerBoard on a shared first place, tightly followed by phpbb (if you get rid of the awful default skin, that is). But then I'm the guy who prefers to write my own hacks, even if there's a close one to what I want already available.

[Duke]

Thanks for your comments Cerebus. I will look into the search engine optimization you suggest. I agree about phpbb's default skin - I really hate that one! Fortunately a lot of custom skins are available to dress it up.