How effective do you think boards are today?
 

Other than for spamming the latest $100 a sign up promo, flaming or just chatting. How effective and influential do you think message boards are today for doing real business?

boards in general are ok.
gfy its another matter.

most of the new webmasters I deal with are 50/50. I get referrals from boards that they visited, and others never heard of webmaster boards and couldnt care less in wasting their time reading threads that are useless, instead they go to boards that contain news stories.

how little do I care??

they are great for me for any kind of trading that needs to be done in this biz, exit trades, members trades, link trades, etc....other than that they are just chat boards

I have one sponsor that I put in my sig for a year or so on here, never put in on any other forum or webmaster page, just GFY

I have 72 referrals from that, getting me 10% of all their sales, I make about $42 from all those referrals together every month

that says TONS about this board and the users of it

whatteeevveerrrrr

ive picked up a few really great customers in the last couple months. and seeing as how all i wanted was a few more... im quite happy

boards are still effective!

Still effective. Less effective than, say, 1996 but still effective. What is called spam today used to be called business.

For you Paul Markham... i dont think boards are all that effective. Pretty much everyone knows you, your sites and your rep.. so boards are just a way for you to keep in touch I would imagine.
for smaller companies getting recognition on the boards could be critical in their success or failure.

So i think the answer is it depends on who you are and at what stage in your business development you're at that determines the effectiveness of the boards.


spaz

Spam on boards? hahaha funny Paul oh wait you mean business boards lol

basicly chatrooms

who cares, i'm here for the entertainment. lol. boards are the playgrounds of the industry.

I will give a personal experience.

I would never have heard of Paul Markham if it weren't for boards. it's when he is being an asshole that I pay attention. ;-)

I don't really buy much content but if I were looking I would check out his sites.

Viva la boards.

true dat.. let me flip it for ya. If you came in and asked for really high quality exclusive teen content ya think you'd get a few suggestions to check out Paul's stuff?


spaz

Views and traffic will tell. :pimp

i think the boards are pretty effective.

I just come for the entertainment value :)

Which can also be considered a vital aspect for marketing. :winkwink:

Still very effective. Even the surfer forums are still effective for certain business models.

Old fasionhed business such as responding to requests for designers works well. Ive bought some thing such as designs from people here.

Its also good for digging up dirt on businesses. I do it all the time before i sign up for things..

exactly! :)

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

Our industry is unlike any other industry. We are spread out all over the country, yet between message boards and trade shows the amount of communication between us all is stunning.

When something happens in our industry, we all know about it instantly because of the boards.

Yes, the boards are more effective than ever before.

u wont get anything done in this board.

with people like franck and lazonby who just troll everyone they are useless, but fortunitley they are weeded out and in turn the boards are very useful.

i'd have no business without GFY :2 cents:

another sponsor I used in my sig only on GFY, this was for sept 2006

Webmasters Uniques Sales Chargebacks Payout
------59 ------0 -----22 -------1 -----$69.65

Still one of the most effective marketing arena online. :thumbsup

Very effective