nurke
Caltrade, I have a few suggestions about your site....and this is not "Rob you suck" but my opinion and what thoughts I had when I visited World startups....since Im a business owner....

*An online community of startup companies that facilitates collaboration between entrepreneurs who are starting new businesses throughout the world........ *

Welcome to worlds startups intro is a big no no to me... there you just told me I got no business joining your site since Im a business owner see more 4 years now, have employes, also it is new site so most likely I wont find it useful....

BUT if your intro is something like;
welcome to our business platform where we believe the best way to help small business grow is to provide the tools that allow entrepreneurs to help each other, recommend/write about bank loans, Credit card merchant processors EXPERIANCES...(fill the rest).....so lets help each other....

You see, if I read something like that, I would join to learn about other owners what they went thru and I would write about what I went thru...and we all would have mutual interest...helping each other...

Also I would make advertisement block invisible to visitors....OMG just another google adsense user....but once I join it would be ok to see....
Also, members and tags blocks dont mean anything....maybe blogs block, forum blogs, sites....would look more to it...
I hope you get the picture and it helps.
I had a site with almost 800 self signed up members and I deleted it 4 years ago. Now Im lingering around, got 87 members, just waiting for 7.1...
Dolphin might be the BEST engine, but its missing wheels.... no site will be successful without good wall and email notifications. As it is now, members sign up but are left to look around for replies...If I would get an email I would come back to see whats going on. Now we have spy , wall, comments, it is really too much.
Hopefully, new wall will record everything.
About my site.... with Prolazink`s help I managed to install dolphin on godaddy shared server which I pay 80 some $ a year and have 5 more nondolphin sites on it. I removed option to upload videos, left only youtube video additions, so I dont store videos, music is removed for the same reason, member can add 25 pictures...and the site is really fast. Once my site kicks in and I get more members/need for bigger server then I`ll get dedicated as it is now, I kinda run dolphin for free( since I have 5 other sites much needed)...oh yes, I have purchased ads management system (like adsbrite and google adsense/adwords) for $99, where you can buy time, impressions,and/or days for your banners....all in all looks good....good idea, we will se if it ends up profitable...
I hope you find it useful and let us know how you will make your site after members advices and suggestions...
Nurke
CALTRADE
Offence is not taken Nurke - I didn't really post this to be critiqued, but since a few people have mentioned the same things I will work on it - specifically the text block which I will try to improve. I can get rid of the tags block - it has never worked anyway but I just let it there for SEO - but the member's block? A few people have mentioned that but that is one that I thought most people here liked and used on their sites. I can keep the blog and forum posts, but it is almost all my content see more - again the "engagement" problem. Everyone agrees that the stuff on the homepage should be only the stuff that us "useful to the users" - but what? We don't really have anything engaging and useful to put there, unlike the other site I posted that is immediately engaging. Totally agree with you on the "notifications" system though - extremely important so if nothing else, I hope Boonex will pay attention to that one.

So you said this isn't another "Rob you suck" post, but even if it is I don't think I care - even I was basically saying I such here. Note what is still missing here after all these comments. No one has come here and said "Rob, check out this Dolphin site - nit is awesome and engaging". That seems to be somewhat revealing to me.
nurke
I came back b/c I got an email I had a reply to my post.... lets see what 7,1 will be like and get modzzz email notifications mod to start.... google search something like "starting business in CA" Starting business in NY" and so on.... read on how to and make blogs or forums about each state...google search business failures....tax fraud, thefts....so on and write about it in your posts...on forum, think of several categories...doesnt have to be 50 of them..

People like to put see more members block visible to visitors thinking that it will impress new members...depends what your site is about....it might work....in your case most likely not....

Someone told Hustonlively to butt off after he replied.... looks like we do have to mention that our posts are not to insult poster so thats why i wrote "not a Rob you suck post"...just to make sure you take my reply as advice...

Maybe the best dolphin based site is boonex.com ... and they have only forums, notes....every while they add oil to the fire and there you go 300 posts a day.....

I hope this can help....
 
 
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