TycoonGamer.com

[mlinsell]

As we approach the end of the first year I thought it would be a good idea to provide you with an update on our progress at TycoonGamer.com as one of my key objectives was to create a sense of ownership amongst the community. This is an honest appraisal of the sites performance so far set out a bit like an annual report (although hopefully with a lot less confusing numbers!).

Finances

Expenses this year were hosting, vbulletin license and the cost of the domain (which was kindly donated by Jon from URL-Mart.com) although there will be an ongoing cost of renewing the domain in future years. The only source of income was through limited advertising on the site.

Income
Advertising ($6 @ 0.571) £3.42

Expenses
Hosting (£11.75 x 12 months) £141
Forum License £43.76
Domain -

Net Profit / (Loss) (£181.34)

These losses are not sustainable in the long term as they are expected to grow significantly as the site gets bigger as more webspace and bandwidth would be required.

Membership

TycoonGamer now has over 600 registered members, an increase of about 250 members in the past 6 months. Less than half of these new members has actually posted a message in the forums and this is something that must be addressed. A measure of our success next year will be converting more of our registered users into regularly visitors and contributors to the site.

Less than 600 new threads have been created during the year and this might partly explain why new members are reluctant to make their first post.

2006 Scorecard Objectives

• The site should be operating at a monthly profit by the end of the year
• 2000 registered users
• 75% of registered users should contribute at least one post to the forums
• Increase community involvement in future decision making

Summary

The foundations of TycoonGamer.com have now been put in place and it is now time for the site to grow it’s community throughout the next year. I would welcome any feedback on what you think of the story so far and any ideas that you think might help us achieve our objectives next year.

Regards,
Mark.

[ORiN]

I wonder what is your hosting package for it to cost £11.75 per month. I think you can get a good hosting package for only $11.75. Having your host in the States will be wiser than having it in the UK.

I also have the problem of non-posting members. In the end, I managed to solve the issue by allowing non-members to view most sections. The right people will be the ones who are registering after that. I also conduct deletions of members who have 0 post count after 1 month. I hope that helps in solving this issue for you as well.