Conference for forum owners?

**sanjay** · 11-23-2009, 08:51 AM

I wanted to see if there was any interest in having a conference for forum owners to get together once a year in order to share best practices and monetization strategies?

I have learned a lot more from talking to owners of forums than I have from reading about things on the internet and I would love to keep meeting and networking with forum owners. I believe that forum owners need to organize and form a trade association and conference in order to remain viable against blogs and other forms of social media that are more organized.

Companies like Internet Brands and many of the advertising networks might be convinced to become sponsors for the conference since we obviously impact their businesses.

Please share your thoughts on this subject. I am happy to do the organizing, and the event would extend beyond vBulletin to all forum owners. I would either pick Southern California (my home base) or Las Vegas if I was doing the planning, but almost any city would work if we had local help and there was proper infrastructure for panel sessions, etc...

What do you think?

**popowich** · 11-23-2009, 08:58 AM

Depends how far it is. North east US and I'd probably make the trip.

-Raymond

**Been Told** · 11-23-2009, 09:10 AM

As a European I'm out of the equation. If any such events were to take place in Europe, I would probably attend.

**sanjay** · 11-23-2009, 09:38 AM

The Europe issue is tricky unless you have a very strong organizer that is in Europe.

**Brandon Sheley** · 11-23-2009, 10:07 AM

I think it's a great idea, if it's possible for me to go, I would attend for sure.

**smacklan** · 11-23-2009, 06:19 PM

I'd love to attend something like this but can't see being able to afford to travel across country for it unfortunately.

**ChopSuey** · 11-24-2009, 05:49 AM

Im not leaving the biggest state in the US just to go to this conference. It should just be a web conference instead.

**Rocket 442** · 11-24-2009, 10:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChopSuey

Im not leaving the biggest state in the US just to go to this conference. It should just be a web conference instead.

There is nothing more productive than actually meeting people in person and building relationships.

I'd be up for it depending on the time of year with classes and things.

**sanjay** · 11-24-2009, 10:18 AM

I realize that travel is expensive, but many of us travel to conferences like pubcon in order to better ourselves and our sites. I assume that the attendees would be folks who are interested in making a living off their sites. I picked Los Angeles because I live here and could make arrangements. Las Vegas was an alternative because we could piggyback on pubcon, but there is also a Dallas pubcon that might work.

At this point this is just to see who might be interested and get some cool ideas for panels and sessions. I have already pitched one affiliate network and they agreed to help as a sponsor if we get this going...

**smacklan** · 11-24-2009, 03:24 PM

I think there is huge value in something like this for myself...I would certainly make a concerted effort depending on the details.

**ArnyVee** · 11-24-2009, 04:05 PM

If the situation and location was right, I would DEFINITELY attend! Fantastic idea Sanjay.

We could have it be a conference in Orlando and I can get some more business by making a trip to Walt Disney World

**sanjay** · 11-24-2009, 04:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ArnyVee

If the situation and location was right, I would DEFINITELY attend! Fantastic idea Sanjay.

We could have it be a conference in Orlando and I can get some more business by making a trip to Walt Disney World

As long as you organized a one day trip to Disney World for all of us so we could check out all the cool top secret stuff!

**ArnyVee** · 11-24-2009, 04:28 PM

I could definitely get us some good deals. I'm a Disney travel agent as well

So, I could book us with some great tours and stuff. Just let me know and we can get crackin' on that one

**fattony69** · 11-24-2009, 04:49 PM

I would honestly do this. I maybe one of the younger admins, but I would love to meet up and discuss such things.

**ArnyVee** · 11-25-2009, 03:55 AM

I know that we've discussed our ages before on this and other sites, but the age thing isn't a big issue. We all have a common goal and that is to attract more visitors, get great content/features on our sites and, in some cases, try to get as much revenue as possible generated from our hobbies/businesses.

I would think that this is a great way to bring webmasters/forum owners together and get even more ideas from one another than we already do.

One of the "events" could be a "let's build a site from scratch" event. I think that it would be awesome to do this with a vBulletin install, IPB install, myBB or phpBB install. Then, you can have a crowd of people vote on a niche (sports, movies, etc) and then have the "leader/presenter" of the event do the install (shouldn't be more than 5-10 minutes on most of these installs), grab a free theme (or premium theme from one of the vendors in attendance

), do some basic modifications (SEO product, some popular/useful mods, etc) and then setup the initial marketing push by signing up on social media sites (Twitter, Facebook, etc) and voila!

We can show how to create a community in less than an hour or two, get some great tips from other forum/site owners and give others some great ideas on starting/setting up their own new sites.

Just one of the ideas

**smacklan** · 11-25-2009, 08:49 AM

If we do Orlando, I'm sooo there! We staying at your place Arny?

**Caddyman** · 11-25-2009, 09:09 AM

good idea arny but it would be too fast for people trying to learn. if we taped it and gave out the dvd's that would work pretty good.

my vbulletin install video on youtube is a click over 5 minutes and some complained i went too fast, but they can pause and go back, right?

i would be in depending on the time and place.

**sanjay** · 11-25-2009, 09:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ArnyVee

I know that we've discussed our ages before on this and other sites, but the age thing isn't a big issue. We all have a common goal and that is to attract more visitors, get great content/features on our sites and, in some cases, try to get as much revenue as possible generated from our hobbies/businesses.

I would think that this is a great way to bring webmasters/forum owners together and get even more ideas from one another than we already do.

One of the "events" could be a "let's build a site from scratch" event. I think that it would be awesome to do this with a vBulletin install, IPB install, myBB or phpBB install. Then, you can have a crowd of people vote on a niche (sports, movies, etc) and then have the "leader/presenter" of the event do the install (shouldn't be more than 5-10 minutes on most of these installs), grab a free theme (or premium theme from one of the vendors in attendance

), do some basic modifications (SEO product, some popular/useful mods, etc) and then setup the initial marketing push by signing up on social media sites (Twitter, Facebook, etc) and voila!

We can show how to create a community in less than an hour or two, get some great tips from other forum/site owners and give others some great ideas on starting/setting up their own new sites.

Just one of the ideas

I love the concept!

**ArnyVee** · 11-25-2009, 03:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by smacklan

If we do Orlando, I'm sooo there! We staying at your place Arny?

My place? LOL....well, my 'home away from home' is Disney, so yeah!

I could seriously get us group rates for the resorts and set us up for behind the scenes tours and all of that. So, we might want to consider that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Caddyman

good idea arny but it would be too fast for people trying to learn. if we taped it and gave out the dvd's that would work pretty good.

my vbulletin install video on youtube is a click over 5 minutes and some complained i went too fast, but they can pause and go back, right?

Chase, I agree. We'd have to tape it and give it out as an 'instructional' video (or maybe sell them for $5 each or something).

And, I've used your video on more than one occasion when setting up a new install of vB. So, if I can follow it, anyone can

Quote:

Originally Posted by sanjay

I love the concept!

Thanks Sanjay!

I'm sure that we could put together lots of 'seminars' or 'events' at a conference like this. I could definitely see vendors from the actual forum software companies, third-party companies that come up with integrated modifications/features and designers from all sorts of areas of the country joining the conference.

**GeminiFilly** · 11-28-2009, 08:59 AM

Depending on location, time of year, cost and schedule of events I'd give it serious consideration.

**GTAce** · 11-28-2009, 12:14 PM

I love the idea, and I'd definitely be there if possible

My biggest concern would be getting enough people to go. The average age of forum owners is quite a bit lower than the average age for most other internet "venturists" and we don't have nearly the numbers as other industries, but hey - if you can get the word out, I'm there!

**Mikey** · 12-01-2009, 02:49 PM

Shame for us europeans. Anyone for a pint, and lives in UK? rofl.

**ChopSuey** · 12-01-2009, 11:00 PM

Lets do the conference in Anchorage, Alaska!

I'll totally be there

**Caddyman** · 12-02-2009, 04:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChopSuey

Lets do the conference in Anchorage, Alaska!

I'll totally be there

my cousin just moved there, so i would probably, definetly, go.

**LSUFanZone** · 01-11-2010, 11:00 PM

I think it'd be a great idea, depending on travel distance i'd be up for it. Maybe consider a centralized location though, so most aren't traveling 1000s of miles while some are only traveling a few hundred.

Maybe a more central location such as Dallas would be more ideal, and with enough people, we could get a group rate at a nice hotel with a banquet room thrown in.

**kneel** · 01-12-2010, 06:04 AM

im down for this .... sounds like a great road trip/vacation for me and my wife!

**brandondrury** · 01-27-2010, 12:13 PM

In my experience, "uniting" is always a good thing. I'm in.

Brandon

**Soliloquy** · 01-28-2010, 11:19 AM

I'd love to attend something like this, but travel is an issue. Surely we could do something fancy like hold several smaller get-togethers and link them together through video conferencing?

**Patrick** · 02-02-2010, 07:27 AM

I'd definitely be up for something like this (and a deeper involvement in it).

**sanjay** · 02-02-2010, 11:26 AM

If anyone is up for coming to L.A. we could do a mini-kickoff session here at our offices. All we do is forums and my three engineers could help with any technical issues. I am also very happy to host any forum owner if they just happen to be in Los Angeles and want to stop by and let me buy them a drink or dinner.

I have spoken to some larger corporations and they have expressed an interest in sponsoring the conference so if we get some momentum then this might be a reality!