In my ongoing effort to Examine and Improve my business in order to work smarter, not harder – the latest project to be weighed and found wanting: the Mom’s Talk Forum over at Mom’s Talk Network.
The forum was just about a year old and in my opinion, never really found it’s stride. A lot of effort was put into recruiting participation and a great many did join and put in a bit of effort – but precious few made it a daily activity. (At least very few were contributing to the conversations.)
I have a few opinions about why the forum struggled.
It was ‘just another mom forum’ from the beginning. Did the web really need another mom forum? I doubt it.
I also think that Social Networking is changing the way that we interact on the web. The forum is no longer the fastest way to get feedback and encouragement or advice.
Think about Twitter. I can post to twitter and have ten replies within a minute or two.
And, a forum complication known all too well by many forum owners is the issue of spammers. We had to turn on the admin approval function on our forum because several hundred spam users were being added daily. Even with the use of spam fighting add ons, it required daily attendance from my VA - and slowed down legitimate sign ups.
All added up – the forum is too time consuming and doesn’t bear enough fruit to warrant it’s keep.
So tonight, we held a brief but respectful funeral for the dear Mom’s Talk Forum. We said good-bye and wished that it would forever rest in peace.
Sun, Jan 27, 2008
Working at Home