View Full Version : Alright - Whattsa Matta?
Well, as you may have noticed, MovieForums has been fairly inactive recently, and I'm just as stumped as anyone else as to why. Obviously the traffic is a little slow (about 20 unique visitors per day), but MovieForums is listed in Yahoo as well as several other significant directories - does anyone have any advice on how I can get the word out?
I'd be interested in the URLs of any other related sites that might be interested in trading links - I'm willing to work a little to try to get this community off the ground. :)
Any suggestions are appreciated. Does anyone think posting reviews, etc would make a nice addition to complement the boards?
angrytiger
08-21-00, 06:19 PM
Well commish, Im not sure how long you've been in operation now, but Im assuming it's not for as long as alot of other movie forum/review based out there.
Im sure, being a web designer, you've spent some time just floating around and marveling, as I do, at the sheer vastness of this world wide web thing. I think that movie watching is an extremely common hobby for most Americans to take up, and to share with one another. If you're new to the internet, it provides a quick common ground for orientation and discussion. So, in my fairly limited experience in website movie discussion as a hobby, Ive discovered that there are literally countless numbers of websites out there to log onto.
Getting connected to links is obviously a good idea. That's how I found your site. Upgrading the overall quality of your website is obviously also always a good idea.
Have you ever been to CHUD (Cinematic Happenings Under Development)? Im not really sure why that one is so hot right now, maybe its the alterna/underground suggestive title of the discussion forums known as The Sewer.
Maybe the thing to think about most is just sheer visual appearance. If it looks like theres stuff goin' down, there probably is.
Good luck,
Im hangin' around
-the tiger
angrytiger,
You're right, MovieForums has only been up for around a month. I myself am not new to the net, but this site most definetly is.
I also agree that I should add more content...a nice busy page will always get someone's attention. :)
ryanpaige
08-24-00, 02:20 AM
Well, I told the assembled throng from my message board about this place, so maybe a few of them will show up to discuss movies, etc. (I also posted the link to the ClutchCity.net boards. They have several movie discussions over there in the hangout area, so maybe some folks will come by from there, too.) I promise nothing, though. :)
Wow, thanks Ryan!
I definetly appreciate any kind of links or anything of the sort; thanks be to you! :)
Also; if you find any other movie sites that you think would like to trade links, feel free to email me with them! :)
Also; do you think I should post some movie reviews here? Rhonda (PeskyP) and I have been toying around with the idea...but I definetly need the "approval" of the board! :)
Also, there's no need for it yet (not enough traffic), but perhaps your own @MovieForums.com emails would be of interest once it picks up?
ryanpaige
08-24-00, 06:29 PM
I think having content (things like movie reviews) since it can prime the pump for the discussions. So, I think you can put me down as voting for "yes" for the movie reviews idea.
Creating a community is the difficult part of starting a website ....
But I've posted a link under every moviepage on my site http://www.filmbug.com (just for a while ... i can't keep the links up forever ...)
I guess that brings you some visitors ... and some new interesting threads.
Keep up the good work.
Misja
Thanks very much Misja - I very much appreciate it!
Another question to toss out: should I make the review here exsclusive to MovieForums, or should I syndicate them a bit in hopes of bringing in new traffic?
Hey Chris,
I have been meaning to reply to this thread for some time (just now getting around to it!). I may introduce a message board on Movie-Fever.com in the future, but for now I would be willing to put a link on each of our review pages. Maybe some of our visitors/subscribers will pay you a visit :)
EDIT: By the way I am a little bias (as I might be interested in using them), but I would syndicate. Atleast for awhile to get the hits rolling in. If you decide to do so let me know.
Wow, that's VERY nice of you Bob. I'll likely be leaving your banner up a lot longer then. :)
You guys are being great...I love all you're doing for this board...I really feel it's people like you all who turn places like this into thriving communities! :)
Austruck
08-30-00, 11:21 AM
I think movie reviews (very prompt ones) is a good idea. Chris, I know you go to a lot of movies just as they come out, so that might be a starting point, along with Rhonda.
My guess is that those might be on an opening page. I know people scope out stuff like reviews on the web before doling out their movie dollars on Friday and Saturday nights. If you could get reviews up there pronto somehow (that first weekend), it would be a plus.
Yes, a lot of changing stuff on the opening page would help bring people back. I realize this is a forum site (duh), but other content would help keep people here.
By the way, these reply windows, etc., are very easy to maneuver around. Good job. Plus, I'm glad it doesn't display my text in teensy point sizes that I can't read! Bravo.
In case anyone is wondering...yes, "Austruck" is my mom...no cracks about it either. :)
Reviews will definetly take their place here soon. I'm actually hoping this forum becomes more active...if it does, I'll be able to justify branching this out into another site or two...all of the sites "connected" with links to each other...one would be, of course, for Reviews. :)
Well I already told you my way, i went into AOL chatrooms and said "are you curious?" and then posted the link, i doubt it did anything, but i tried. I think you should upload Movie Previews, I dont know how much webspace you have though. But if you wanna get the previews, go to either http://www.upcomingmovies.com, http://www.adcritic.com, or if you jsut wanna some funny stuff check out the videos at my site, http://www.peterco.com (what a run on sentance)
Web space wouldn't be a major issue...but those clips are copywritten anyway...I'll be lucky if I can squeeze out a picture of a movie poster to put on the review pages! :(
Ohhh yea, I forgot about that, well if you just but a little disclaimer at the bottom I don't think anyone will care to much. I thought that the copyright only came into concern if you changed the original material, or claimed it as your own?
Nope - it's always an issue. Odds are it wouldn't be of interest to the companies...but if the site grew large enough it would.
Actually, I just checked it out with the guy who owns http://www.adcritic.com, you don't need any sort of permission to put a commerical on the site, as long as you don't try and take credit for it. :-)
Hmmm...interesting. I'll look into it a bit, but it would still take up a lot more space and bandwidth than otherwise.
Side note: how do you guys like the new polls built into the posts? Pretty cool, huh? :) You guys can post em' too! :)
George Bailey
09-05-00, 10:53 AM
Ta Daaa! My first post here.... drawn in from Sitepoint.
I think it would be an idea to have a resources area where people can post their own film related essays, articles, comments etc. That way you may be able to draw in film and media students to the site, and you would be able to slip into all the student web-rings etc. Web-rings are always a good plan I think, it brings a self targetted audience.
Peter
(OK so my nik here is George Bailey, but that's just in honour of James Stewart).
Do you like the popcorn?
Interesting idea. I love the popcorn. Just so everyone knows: the little on/off popcorn icons on the mainpage were created by "George" here. :)
I'll definetly think your idea over...I'd take some thinking to come up with a good way to allow the public to add to our site without it getting out of hand of course, though. :)
thmilin
09-10-00, 05:45 PM
Alrighty, my two cents! I found your site because you posted in Swirve movie forums - so those signatures of yours are a great idea. I think if you keep on visiting other movie forums and responding to threads with that "proud owner of Movieforums.com" bit dangling at the end, you will certainly draw people (like you did me!). Also, there are various link posts on the net that update in real time; if you post there daily and circulate among them you get a lot of traffic because people want to see what you're about.
On top of that, you have to do HEAVY duty advertising. Some ideas - visit the main webring.org site for movie forums/movie sites. Any large site that has a search database, add yourself to. Any site run personally like you're running this gig, you offer to put up a banner for them if they do the same for you. Bad news - you will likely have to resort to an ad banner. I know that in the interest of self-respect and keeping things easy on the eyes, quality sites hate to use advertising, but at some point you will have to to get the traffic you want. So - go out there and research a banner program that will work for you. They have target specific programs so I'm sure there is a specific movie ad program out there.
Then, for basic advertising, you've got to add yourself to way more than just the core search engines - do some searching and you'll find those sites that add you to multiple engines. You can use business engines (this is a private "business"), entertainment engines, etc. Add yourself to everything and anything. Have friends add you to theirs (as people who have posted here have done already). There are the large major search engines and the dinky ones, but they're ads, and beggars can't be choosers.
In all, this takes a LOT of time. When I began my personal website it was a part-time job just to get my site out there, but in the first few months I got serious hits. The problem is, when you slack off, so do the numbers, so keep that in mind.
Now, for reviews! Yes yes yes! People like to hear what other people think of a movie, and people like to give their own opinion. It's nice and all if you post your own reviews, but also frustrating because visitors can't answer--take, for example, the Swirve Movie site. They have a pessimisstic reviewer and you can't talk back to him. So, I go for providing visitors the opportunity to add their own writing. The plus side is, you can "hire" (for no pay) people and print articles after a submission approval process, and post those in their own area, and then people can have a thread to debate those articles/reviews. Or you can make a forum it so anybody can post pieces and respond.
In so doing, you'd get a lot of input, a lot of visitors, and I think that would make your site get busy as a beehive. People would be quick to tell their friends online and off about your site because they have an article there they want read and can dangle the possibility that their friend could get published too ...
Personal plug - as a writer, movie lover, and film studies student myself, I'd sign up to write in a minute!
_______________
;)
without movies, I would die.
thmilin
09-10-00, 05:47 PM
PS - when I said exchange banners, there are two ways - the ad banners you put on every page, and then a single page of your "partner" ads - people who have agreed to put you somewhere on your site. Just make one page/area for advertisers to keep them neatly away from your main site but accessible to your visitors if they'd like to see them (and to keepy our end of the bargain).
________________
;)
Without movies, I would die.
Hi there,
Wow, what a post! I agree with basically everything you have said...I'm listed in Yahoo and have exchanged a few links, and am in the process of exchanging more. It will be easier to do so once the rest of the site is done.
Regarding "talking back"...once the site is normally posting reviews and bringing in plenty of posts, a forum will be opened to chat/complain/whatever concerning the articles and reviews here...I'll make sure to only bring on board (mostly) writers who post here as well. :)
Another idea is something thats basically done already: commenting. Ever see SlashDot.org? It's like that...I've integrated a user commenting system for all movie news stories to be posted...you can use your username and password from these forums to leave little comments at the end of every movie news story...I'll do the same for the reviews and articles as well. :)
Regarding writing for us: you seem very articulate and if you're truly serious feel free to drop me a line and we can discuss it:
[email protected]
Thanks again! :) Also: keep on the lookout for a couple of contests in the coming weeks around the time of our new launch!
jamesglewisf
10-11-00, 01:24 AM
What's up with people registering and then never posting? I've noticed that you have members with 0 posts just like my board does. That's strange. I get all excited about a new member, and then they never come back.
I had a drought week this past week. Very few visitors compared to the prior week, and most of my members stopped posting with the exception of one or two. I hope that my more active members were just on vacation or something.
Do you continue to have dry weeks?
Of course...it's all very strange. Once I get several hundred members I'll probably send out an email to all members with 0 posts...and then delete those that still have 0 posts a week later.
:D I love jumping into a point in history. It's cool to see some of the long time members getting to know each other (Thmilin, OG, Yoda and Austruck -> all newbies :p). Plus it's weird to think of mofo not being all that lively and the people offering advice seemed to leave soon after! I wonder if it could ever go too far the other way; as in have so many members posting that the place just becomes too difficult to navigate.
*maybe the future is something like this; u've just posted in a new thread then you instantly got three replies at once and then an hour later there were 100 replies and you've totally lost the gist of the discussion. Scary to think :eek:
Austruck
06-24-06, 11:54 AM
It's hilarious to get new post notifications for threads this old. :) Thanks for the bump, Spooky. Made my morning.
As for too many posts, I meander around HBO's forums for several of their series, and that's precisely as you describe: You ask one innocent question and within an hour there are 100 replies, half of them meandering around the topic and asking other people tangential questions from three pages earlier, etc. etc. And the board automatically posts in reverse order with most recent post first, so once you go back to that thread, your post is now back about eight pages.
PLUS, it also duplicates the last few posts on a page on the one page earlier than that one, so there's too much overlap. For a forum that's always that active, HBO has a terrible setup. I've given up posting there entirely, and now only hit the forums at all right after a new episode airs (Sopranos, Deadwood, mostly), if I have any questions about how or why something happened that week.
It's really a nightmare over there. (And don't get me started on the intelligence level of these people.) :rolleyes:
It's really a nightmare over there. (And don't get me started on the intelligence level of these people.) :rolleyes:
:laugh: With that many users and the obvious difficulty in having a rational conversation because of the excess posts then you're bound to have a larger proportion of people on the thicker side of the intelligence spectrum. I wonder if Chris would ever have to limit people from signing up? Or even have a split forum; one for certain members who have been here a while and another one full of new members.
Austruck
06-24-06, 12:36 PM
Yeah, those are the problems Chris might not mind having! :)
I like the homely feel here :yup:
Yoda I wonder if you can help me with a problem? Every Sunday evening from 6pm onwards I cannot get onto MoFo :bawling: I don't know why as I can access any other site world wide :confused: it has been the last 6 Sundays. :(
Wow, that's awfully odd. I'll ask Rob if there's any sort of weekly maintenance being performed at that time. Anyone else having the same problem?
Thanks Yods, I was wondering if because of the time differance it is extra busy in the USA and that is why, but it only started 6 weeks ago :confused:
SamsoniteDelilah
09-22-06, 02:15 AM
Yoda I wonder if you can help me with a problem? Every Sunday evening from 6pm onwards I cannot get onto MoFo :bawling: I don't know why as I can access any other site world wide :confused: it has been the last 6 Sundays. :(
Pardon my idiocy, but 6pm Australia would be what, like 4am in California? I'm having no trouble of any kind, that time of day, but whether the internet works is another question. ;)
Tacitus
09-22-06, 07:04 AM
Thanks Yods, I was wondering if because of the time differance it is extra busy in the USA and that is why, but it only started 6 weeks ago :confused:
Same with me at that time (Sunday mornings here) and MoFo seems to be down until mid afternoon.
spudracer
09-22-06, 09:02 PM
Same with me at that time (Sunday mornings here) and MoFo seems to be down until mid afternoon.
Every now and then I have the same problem. But that's only on my laptop. When I get on my desktop, it works fine.
I have the same problem as well, mine could be related to the crap compy I've got :rolleyes: .
The few times I've tried to pop in here on Sunday mornings, I've experienced that problem as well.
Sir Toose
11-21-06, 12:40 AM
I thought this was a new thread :D
I thought this was a new thread :D
Toosey! where have you been? nice to see you :kiss:
Piddzilla
11-21-06, 06:32 AM
I thought this was a new thread :D
But seeing your name in it should convince anyone of the opposite!
Hey, man! Where the hell have you been??
Sir Toose
11-21-06, 09:21 AM
Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?
And where have you been, my darling young one?
I've stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains,
I've walked and I've crawled on six crooked highways,
I've stepped in the middle of seven sad forests,
I've been out in front of a dozen dead oceans,
I've been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard
;)
Good Golly Miss Molly....it's the Devil himself.
It's great to see you stumble out of those twelve misty mountains and drop in here Toosie. :kiss: :kiss:
*big hug*
Great googly moogly. It's Toose! Talk about something to be thankful for. :)
Piddzilla
11-21-06, 01:09 PM
Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?
And where have you been, my darling young one?
I've stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains,
I've walked and I've crawled on six crooked highways,
I've stepped in the middle of seven sad forests,
I've been out in front of a dozen dead oceans,
I've been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard
;)
Ah Britney.... Love her!!
Sir Toose
11-21-06, 07:01 PM
Great googly moogly. It's Toose! Talk about something to be thankful for. :)
That was quite the nice thing for you to say!
How's tricks?
Sir Toose
11-21-06, 07:01 PM
Ah Britney.... Love her!!
Britney?? Good God man haven't you heard of BOB DYLAN!!??
:D
Sir Toose
11-21-06, 07:04 PM
Good Golly Miss Molly....it's the Devil himself.
It's great to see you stumble out of those twelve misty mountains and drop in here Toosie. :kiss: :kiss:
*big hug*
Hey there Annie bannie fo fannie! Oh she of the uncanny fanny!
:D
Piddzilla
11-22-06, 06:22 AM
Britney?? Good God man haven't you heard of BOB DYLAN!!??
:D
Yes, and Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall is one of my favourite tracks. I was trying to be funny. And failed.
I was trying to be funny. And failed.
No you didn't, it made me smile :D
Sir Toose
11-22-06, 10:15 AM
Yes, and Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall is one of my favourite tracks. I was trying to be funny. And failed.
See I didn't know that Britney DIDN'T cover that tune as she definitely has covered others.
Your joke was good, my understanding was bad. Wait, are we in familiar territory?
:D :D ;)
That was quite the nice thing for you to say!
How's tricks?
Tricks are good. Finally got an apartment. Just enjoying life. How about you?
Hey there Annie bannie fo fannie! Oh she of the uncanny fanny!
:D
:laugh:
Well...this fanny has missed you around here my friend. Welcome home.
Now what can we do to make you take your shoes off and stay awhile? A Martini? Bourbon? Coors Light? A Shirley Temple? Piddy on a stick?
:D
Piddzilla
11-22-06, 06:37 PM
Piddy on a stick?
:nope: He's on a Piddy-free diet. That's why he can't take a Piddy joke.
Piddzilla
11-22-06, 06:47 PM
Man...... I'm sitting here trying to imagine Britney singing A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall.... It's quite a bizarre experience....
Sir Toose
11-23-06, 01:26 AM
Edie Brickell did it... she was roughly an 80's equivalent of Britney. Without, of course, Disney backing her career.
We should do a thread... Cover tune least likely to succeed. :D
So Yoda, same work, same mortgage, kids are growing and I'm just juggling as best I can. Congrats on your new pad!
And Annie, you're a sweetheart. Martini, please, or better yet a rum and coke.
I have to be mean to Piddy now, he missed that ;D
....MovieForums has only been up for around a month....
I have been a member since 2001, how can that be??
Oh, and I have a link to movieforums.com on my blog. So I can't promise anything either but hopefully that draws people in. ;)
Edie Brickell did it... she was roughly an 80's equivalent of Britney. Without, of course, Disney backing her career.
Thanks a lot Sir Toose!
Now I got that retarded "What I Am" song going through my head!
Monkeypunch
11-23-06, 04:42 PM
Edie Brickell did it... she was roughly an 80's equivalent of Britney. Without, of course, Disney backing her career.
Oh, the insult! Edie Brickell was more of a hippie type folk singer, actually, and really quite good. Debbie Gibson was the 80's equivalent to Britney.
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