Online communities

[ign9]

Hi there guys I am kind of skeptical about starting an online community business and gaining my income from advertsing for the companies that suit my target market.

Anyone who can help me or increase my chances of profit please reply with your thoughts

[mxer210]

I woulud be skeptical. I started a community with currently 700 members and barely made a profit. I used google adsense for advertising and barely got clicks.

[ign9]

Hi there again,

I am doing it in a caribbean context and the people here are very open to online advertising, and they have an hunger for things that are specifically for them other than hotmail and other services that don't sometimes even know about their countries.
However since you have already had experience with an online community can you give me the link to your online community and also the steps and other problems you encountered.

[kellycoke13]

online communities really are businesses, they are just meeting places and advertising pays the owner of the site to operate and maintain it. You probably couldn't expect a reasonable income.

[pentupentropy]

I disagree to some extent. It's not that you can't build a traffic base from which to gain income, however, you need to be willing to either A) take a very long time building it or B) spend a whole lot of money to get the traffic started.