Finding good people isn't easy
I have been looking for post exchange partners at places like
The Forum Zone and
Site Point. I actually made a post at half a dozen forums to look for post exchange partners. I worked with half a dozen people recently and exchanged posts, but finding good people isn't easy. Most people fall into the following categories:
1. Never post
2. Post only a couple
3. Post 20 or 30, but then they say "I am so busy that I can't continue."
3.2. Post 20 or 30, and then stop.
They are not necessarily lazy, but they probably lack motivation. Monetizing internet discussion forum is very difficult; in addition, getting internet discussion forum up and running itself is very difficult. This is why so many people give up at a very early stage. This is why it is very difficult to find a post exchange partner who makes long term commitment.
One-on-one post exchange script prototype
First thing I need to do is this. Write one-on-one post exchange script for phpBB users. The script works like the following:
1. There are two php files. One only keeps track of how many posts the user made, and the other keeps track of surplus and deficit.
1.2. File 1 is a slight modification of profile.php in phpBB. Currently, it outputs the page like this. But what I want to do is just to output total post count. It would be ideal if output is in XML format, but I think I'll try that later.
1.3. File 2 reads File 1 and calculates surplus and deficit. File 2 also displays the calculated result to whoever accesses the file.
Suppose that person A and person B work on one-on-one post exchange. Both install File 1 and 2, and whenever anyone wants to check the current status, he/she just accesses File 2; the script shows the latest status, the current surplus and deficit.
Launching eCommunityDevelopment.com
So, I decided to launch eCommunityDevelopment.com. Though I currently run four websites (Open Online Education Network, Open Healthcare Network, eFinancialDistrict and yet Another Film Critique Website), I was not too crazy about the idea of launching any website related to SEO, website design, internet, or any of topics related to IT and internet. This is primarily because there are so many websites about IT and internet, and I had hard time finding any good reason why I should launch yet another one. However, there aren't even a handful of websites getting any result in community development. More specifically, there are few websites that focus on development of internet discussion forums like these, Example 1, Example 2, Example 3 and Example 4 and get any solid result. One of key techniques webmasters use to develop an internet discussion forum is post exchange. Currently, there are only two websites that facilitate post exchange, which are Aardvark Post Exchange and Post Swap. Aardvark Post Exchange is working pretty well, but there are only a couple of webmasters participating. It's a good post exchange, but there are some downsides such as post exchange does not offer any automation system to keep track of participants' activities. Post Swap has its automation system, but the problem is that it is out of maintenance; furthermore, the system has many flaws and bugs. None of these issues have been addressed. Also, in my opinion, there is a certain weakness in the design of Post Swap. Up until now, I was relying on these websites to develop my own internet discussion forums, but existing systems simply do not offer enough. I decided to develop mechanism to facilitate post exchange finally, and I am launching eCommunityDevelopment.com for this reason.
