For those of you who haven’t heard already, vBulletin 3.7 has finally gone Gold. This means the software is secure and ready for full use. This version is long-awaited, and I’m sure we’re all glad it’s finally ready. The vBulletin 3.7 software line has added several new features to the software, most notable various social networking features like tags, thread prefixes, social bookmarking, profile customization, visitor messages and several other additional features. Read the official announcement thread here.

In addition to 3.7 Gold being released, Jelsoft announced that versions 3.0 and 3.5 have reached their end of life. Because of this, they will no longer be supported or updated, so all users should upgrade to at least vBulletin 3.6.

Additionally, vBulletin has changed how they handle the licensing of their software. On the positive side, there is no longer any renewal fee for addon products. This means if you buy the blog plug-in, you only have to pay for it once and you get support for as long as you have an active “parent” vBulletin license. Most of these changes don’t go into effect until June 2nd, but when they do, owned licenses will then cost $180 and leased licenses will cost $100. If you have an owned license that expires, it will cost you $40 to renew it if you do so in the first 60 days after your license expires; it will cost you $60 to renew it if you renew it later. You can read more details on this on the vBulletin thread or discuss it in our forum.

When starting a new forum, the first thing you need to decide is what the niche of your forum will be. This can be a strainful decision for many webmasters. A niche is the primary topic or focus of your website or forum.

There are two main things to avoid when choosing the niche of your forum. Firstly, you must avoid choosing a topic that’s too saturated. If your niche already has large, successful forums about the exact topic, it can be very difficult to break away to success. The second thing you must avoid is making a forum niche that’s too specific. If your topic is something so specific that there is only a small audience, you won’t get much activity. This is not because of competition, but rather because of lack of interest.

The key to choosing a successful niche is to carefully analyze the topics you are considering. You need to find a topic that has enough interest but not enough competition.

There are many things you must consider when choosing your forum niche.

Make a list of what you enjoy. Then go to each of these topics and narrow them down even more. For example, say you wrote down gaming. You can then narrow that down to PC gaming, video game counsels, online gaming, etc. That can be narrowed down further: Gaming > Video Game Counsels > Xbox > Halo. While you don’t have to make it as specific as a specific video game, oftentimes the more specific the niche the better. After you’ve generated a list of potential forum niche’s, consider the following things before jumping to create a new forum.

• The best forum niche is something you enjoy. Even better is a topic you’re passionate about. This is the most important thing when considering the niche of your forum. If you don’t like or have little interest in the topic of the forum, you won’t be as motivated in running the site. It is difficult to successfully administer a site you have no interest in; it’s doable, but it’s no walk in the park.

• Consider the profitability of the niche. Can you make money from it? Are there products to be sold? If you’re interested in running a forum for a hobby and aren’t interested in the money then you need not consider this variable.

• Is there competition for this niche? Keep in mind that the more competitive the niche, the harder it is to be successful. The ideal niche would be something you’re interested in, many other people are interested in, and that doesn’t have much, if any, competition. One very general method of determining the competition is to Google “*keyword* forum” in Google. The lower the results the better (note: this isn’t necessarily a reliable method of determining competition). You can also use Google’s Adword’s Keyword Tool to get a rough idea of search volume and competition for any keyword or niche. You may need to make the niche more specific, more general, or find a new niche altogether.

• Even if there is a large amount of competition for the niche, check out the competing websites. Are they doing a good job? If they are, then you should consider something else. However, if the members seem unsatisfied or if there is an obvious need for something the competition doesn’t offer, you should enter the niche. One of the most valuable pieces of advice that can be given is to find a need and fulfill it. Find what the members want and give it to them. If the competition is unwilling or unable to supply what’s needed, you have a very realistic shot at success. Improve upon what’s needed and what your competition is missing. Do this, and you will have success.

• Is there adequate interest in this niche? If people don’t want to talk about the niche you may have an unusual topic or a niche that’s to specific. Following the example above, if you made a niche exclusively about an older, outdated game such as Halo 1 you might not have much interest. The same goes for other specific niches such as Halo maps, game glitches, etc. You want specific, but not too specific.

• There are many other variables you must consider for your niche. For example, if you’re interested in building a long term forum, you don’t want a topic that will be obscure in a year. Consider hidden things that might not have been thought of above, or factors that may affect your forum’s success indirectly.

All in all, the niche of your forum is the most important of all issues you will face. It should be something that you’re interested in, that has an open market for success. Improve upon your competition and you will succeed.

We’ve recently (nearly) completed the addition of a forum directory to the site. The purpose of this directory is to list solely forums of visitors to the site. Because of this, we ask that you only submit sites that you personally own or moderate to the directory. There’s no doubt that we’ll be making changes and improvements to the directory, but for the time being, feel free to submit your forum to the directory. If you have a suggestion for a category, feel free to email us or leave the suggestion in a comment. The purpose of this forum directory is to provide a directory resource for forum administrators who frequent our site to list their directory, as well as for visitors to easily find forums on the topic of their choice.

The forum directory can be found here.

Recently we’ve acquired a new design for our forum and site; now that our new look is in place, we can begin to fill our site with content. Our new theme is designed by Kalina Web Designs. This skin features a horizontal tabbed menu and sidebar with the latest information. In the coming weeks we will provide an abundance of articles and blog posts about forum administration and promotion, as well as related topics. We hope to provide useful tutorials and forum demos, as well as provide free themes, a forum directory, and an active webmaster marketplace. Over the next few days we’ll slowly be adding new content and tweaking the current site display.

Perhaps most important of all, our forum will provide valuable resources to forum administrates of all experience levels. The idea is to create a forum administrator community that will pull together to help one another and offer constructive advice and meaningful discussion.

In addition to the existing and planned future features I’ve described, we will also offer a contest in the near future. Stay tuned for more information. If you have any ideas, suggestions, or feedback, feel free to contact us or leave us a comment.