password;1189452 wrote:If it is not going to be a sports site, then why do people always try and compare it to JJ's? A general chat site is not something Justin would want to waste his money on. You have Twitter and Facebook for general chat, so if that is his plans I hope he doesn't plan on getting a return on his investment. You have to think outside the box and build something different if you are going to be successful on the internet when it comes to social media/ chat sites.
Speaking as someone who makes a full-time income on the intertubez, Facebook and Twitter are insufficient for forum-style conversation, and sports forums are anything but "thinking outside the box," as they are probably one of the more common forum types out there.
The more general a site, the more visitors likely, but also the less targeted. It's a give-and-take that comes with any kind of traffic.
The unique part of this is that it IS targeted. By the title itself, it is Ohio-related. That does target it some, at least as far as the focus (not saying they have to live in Ohio, of course). A perfect example of this playing out is FFT's thread today. He asked about "Akron." Because this site is adequately targeted as Ohio-focused, nobody had to ask, "Akron where?"
Finally, given that there are still subforums with niche topics, you can still advertise with some form of targeting, ESPECIALLY when you get down to the thread level.
Bottom line, it doesn't have to be further targeted to be profitable. Test and adjust. Test and adjust. People do it everyday, and they make it work. No reason Justin can't.
