OxfordTalk.com

Forum URL: OxfordTalk.com

Forum Name: Oxford Talk

Launch Date: Mid April I think

Posts/Threads/Members: 245/87/39

Forum Software: MyBB

Description: Forum for the local folks in the city I live/work in.

Other Info/Points of Interest: I had been chewing on this idea for months. Finally decided to give it a go. It grew some in late April and then through May. But now as quickly as I expected. Go figure. Then as the summer hit I didn't give it the attention it needed. So as fall is now here, school is back in action (there's a major university in town too) I'm going to do more in the promotion/marketing area.

But I'm curious about first impressions and the "stickiness" of the forum. And what overall improvements can be made. And number of forums? And all the other stuff I'm not thinking of.

 

StateDOG,

Nice forum, Does oxford have official colors or themes perhaps? Like the City I live in, uses blue and white for everything. Matching your site to their colors would be a good idea.

You need some sort of front page/CMS system that when visitors land on your site, they'll know what its about. You'll find your stats will improve with a nice landing page for them on the index.

The forum icons for the status of the forums need some improvements as well. Perhaps something like a city light pole thats on/off to notify of new posts/no new posts.

I find you have a nice number of forums for your member base. Not to many, and not to few, nice job.

I hope you find these suggestions useful and you take them into consideration when working on your site next.

 

Thanks, BSM,

Oxford doesn't have any official colors really. But there is a major university here who's colors are red/white/blue. And then two high schools. One is blue/gold, while the other is red/white. So lots of colors floating around. So I tried to go neutral of some sort.

In regards to the front page/CMS topic, is it best to move to a IPB/vB option for such a thing, or does MyBB have a capable option? I've usually thought that it was good for people to see the basic forum options on entry rather than a CMS...at least until there were articles and such to be posted. But I'm not sure.

I love the idea of the lamp posts or something similar for the forum icons.

Thanks again for the feedback!

 

Advanced portal v6 for mybb

 

OxfordTalk.com Review

Hi StateDog!

Wow, you are way up there at the top of MS aren't you! I have family down in Gulfport so they are more USM fans than Ole Miss.

* I loved what BSM said about the colors so I checked around and found out that the official "City of Oxford" website colors are gold and blue. Perhaps you would want to go with that to look more "official?"

* They also have a "logo" of sorts that you might be able to build off of... It is an "O" with a leaf in the middle of it. Some of the information on their website looks a little dated. Looking at your site I would gather that it gets a good amount of pass through traffic. Perhaps you may want to think about contacting the city and asking them if they would like to partner with you. They could link to your site for "a taste of Oxford" and you could link to them for "just the facts."

* Speaking about pass through traffic - if that assumption is right - why do you think that is? Do you have any thoughts or data?

* You have some overlap in your forums that you may want to clarify for your users. "Coffee shops in Oxford" post is in two different forums and I saw that some of the Ole Miss football talk is happening in the Sports Lounge area.

* Have you thought about taking the information you have here and putting together a newsletter for your members? If you took the hottest stories, put together some articles, and sent that out to your members, you might have a good publicity item. People could forward it to their friends and you could put in a link to your site. This could make your forum more of an accepted community fixture. It may also help you get advertising interest on your site or in the newsletter (if you are interested in that).

* Lastly, the city of Oxford website has a whole bunch of things posted on its calendar. Perhaps you might want to pick up some of the highlights from there for your event calendar. Also, maybe you can welcome local businesses to add content to your calendar with the days that they are having sales or something. Add all of the Rebel football games... etc.

Overall great job! Very clean and easy to navigate!

HTH!!
RR