I do wish you luck with it, I just don't get how anyone can tell you the worth of a post or Member on your forum. How is that possible?

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Exactly... I am still confused to what is being asked here. Oh well, others seem to understand and are giving him/her the answer they asked.

I would say several cents per quality post but that would mean reading each post, deciding if it's quality (a set of criteria and a dedicated staff member to do this job would be necessary) and keeping track of the posts/members so a script would be necessary.

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Prolific Dreamer - Up and running since 01/Jun/08, but the theme is being developed at present. RSS Feed

1000 posts might not even be worth a loaf of real New York Italian bread. Not sure.

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POTD | FOS

I dont think you can easily place a monetary value on posts or members because there are too many variables.

I believe that you have to look at it a different way and say that it isnt post count, or members that is important but instead that the posting activity and member activity.

Post Counts/Members are only valued in how much they bring in new members. A brand new member visiting will see the Post Count and Memberslist but wont be overly impressed in joining unless

A) The Post count doesnt have to be significantly high but is constantly being added to. In other words a good 50+ new posts a day to browse through, to bring them back time and again. If you put a money value on it you could pay $10 for 10,000 posts, but with nobody posting regular content, future visitors will see that there is nothing new being added, in effect a dead forum and will not join and therefore be no use to advertisers. A forum with 1,000 posts that has 100+ posts added every day is an active forum, it gives members more to read every day and brings them back time and time again and suddenly the value goes up to advertisers. So my value would be 1000 static posts wouldnt be worth more than a few cents, but 1000 regularly added posts would be worth several $$$

B) Members are also like Posts in a fashion. To have 100,000 members on a forum may look impressive but again, if only 3 of them are active and posting it doesnt mean anything, and a guest to the site will soon see the lack of activity and the same 3 names posting and realise that either A) its dying, B) its a fake memberlist or C) Something is seriously wrong that a board with 100,000 members only produces 20 posts a day!
100 active members that each post 10+ posts a day will give you a forum that has over 1000+ posts a day, more than enough to keep people on your site reading the fresh content for a good 30 mins or more. So again, my value on members is to have a memberlist of 100,000 may be worth cents in terms of the forum (although their emails may be worth considerably more) but I would say 100+ active members regularly posting in double figures each day is worth a lot of $$$ and these are what you want to find for any forum.

At the end of the day.... Active Members are worth 10 times more than number of posts on a forum. A few dozen Active members given a few nudges in the right direction by an Admin can bring in 100's if not 1000's of posts to a forum, can in turn bring in more members interested in the fresh content and activity on the site who will add to the buzz and this in turn will bring in more page impressions for advertisers, and more click thru's for advertisers in the long term than a dead forum that has 100,000 members and 1,000,000 post but barely getting any visitors due to stale and unchanging content or activity.

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Well said, and this provides food for thought.

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Talk Digital Design - Currently in development.
Prolific Dreamer - Up and running since 01/Jun/08, but the theme is being developed at present. RSS Feed

I actually normally see 1 post = $0.10 - $0.15.

So for 1000, according to most average post sales, I would say $100-$150

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