[ihavetoblog]

I get an average of 3000 visitors a month and have 148 registered users, of which 60 or so are family and friends.

Most of the traffic generated has come from Google Adwords and testing ads for the embassy section. Next up is google organic, again, mostly for the embassy section. The rest are referrals from blogs/forums mainly to the Travel News section.

[JamesDB]

Are people responding well to it in forums? Do you find users promote it among friends?

[ihavetoblog]

The articles get a decent response. Activity usually lasts 2-3 days but the users only click on other articles from there and then bounce.

There isn't a lot of promotion as most people view this as something they might use while traveling as opposed to adding content in the city they already reside in. And, thus, there is very little word of mouth.

I have seen some people join from marketing efforts, especially people who are leaving for a trip, but end up not using the site. I have a rough idea as to why (usability) but it is not concrete enough for a radical change