| Do you really need to wait for users to generate your content? I'd suggest that's the scenario most likely to fail (that is, waiting for users to generate content dramatically increases the odds of failure). You might already be actively doing this, but if not.... Spin-up the flywheel by generating as much content through faking users as you can stand to. Simulate real users (you fake the user names, the contribution time stamps, the upvotes / downvotes, and anything else necessary for your particular community). The more quality activity on your site, the greater the odds you'll get that critical initial traction. It doesn't matter if it's real or fake, so long as real users can't tell the difference. You could also consider paying users for activity, depending on exactly what you need. The Amazon web services mechanical turk premise. http://aws.amazon.com/mturk/ I don't know how difficult it is to generate user content for your site, granted. Look up how Reddit used this concept to fake-it until they made it. It's also a commonly used tactic on new dating sites. There's nothing worse than a site lacking in activity, do whatever it takes to avoid that. Users will suffer a lot of things, such as bad design, long before they'll hang around somewhere that isn't humming. |
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmeDzx4SUME