Webmaster Income.net

1. 21% (One Fifth) of Twitter accounts are empty placeholders. These are the percentage of Twitter accounts that have never posted a single tweet. They may either be registered simply to hold a username for later use, or be experimental accounts started up but never used.

2. Nearly 94% of all Twitter accounts have less than 100 followers. In a finding perhaps consistent with the newness of the tool as well as the fact that many people may currently have an account simply to start experimenting with the tool, Sysomos found the vast majority of Twitter users have an extremely low followership.

3. March and April of 2009 were the tipping point for Twitter. During these months, Ashton Kutcher launched his quest to get to 1 million followers faster than CNN, Oprah started using Twitter, and the steady flow of new users to the site continued. For many, it offered a safer and easier way to get their feet wet with social media, 140 characters at a time.

4. 150 followers is the magic number. In a particularly interesting data point from the survey, Sysomos found that Twitter users tended to “follow back” all their followers up until about 150 connections. Then the reciprocation rate fell off dramatically, which seems to indicate that this number may be the crossover point where people shift from using Twitter for more personal use to using it more for “lifecasting” their thoughts and actions to a community of people who they feel varying levels of connection to.

5. A small minority creates most of the activity. A steep curve of a small minority of actively engaged content creators generating most of the activity on a site is common among social networks, but it is steeper and more pronounced on Twitter. 5% of users account for 75% of all activity, and 10% of users account for 86%. This seems to suggest that the site has managed to engage a mass audience beyond those who typically engage with social media.

6. Half of all Twitter users are not “active.” If you take a general description of being “active” on Twitter to mean that you have posted a tweet at some point in the last 7 days (1 week), then the survey learned that 50.4% of all Twitter users fit this category. If you remove the 21% from point #1, this leaves about 30% of users who have an account and have tweeted before, but happen to be inactive now.

7. Tuesday is the most active Twitter day. One of the most useful data points from the report is that it clears up the common question of which day of the week is the best day to tweet something. Sysomos found that Tuesday stood out as the most popular day for tweets and retweets, followed by Wednesday and then Friday.

8. APIs have been the key to Twitter’s growth & utility. In terms of tools that people are using for Twitter, Sysomos found that more than half (55%) of all Twitter users use something other than Twitter.com to tweet, search and connect with others. This may, in part, be due to Twitter’s notorious reputation of failing/crashing, but also is a credit to all the third party applications that have been built on top of Twitter and do their fair share to bring new users to the service.

9. English still dominates Twitter. When exploring Russia as part of a class that I am teaching this summer at Georgetown, one of the barriers we learned about was the difficulty of fitting some Russian language words into just 140 characters. Twitter is, however, extremely English-friendly. As the Sysomos report found, the top four countries on Twitter are all English speaking (US, UK, Canada, Australia). Of these, US makes up 62% of all Twitter users, followed by UK with nearly 8% and Canada and Australia with 5.7% and 2.8% respectively. The largest non-English speaking country on Twitter? Brazil with 2%.IMB_TwitterSysomos2

10. Twitter is being led by the social media geeks. This particular finding should likely come as no surprise, but 15% of Twitter users who follow more than 2000 people identify themselves as social media marketers. These individuals are more likely to post updates every day (sometimes more than once per day) and also use Twitter more actively for direct communication.

Revenue-sharing forums are lately being launched around the Internet. For those webmasters actively participating in forums, this may be a great source of earning additional income. Although one will not become a millionaire, the webmaster will in fact earn a small amount of revenue passively.

How do these forums work?

The majority of revenue-sharing forums require webmasters to be in possession of a Google Adsense account in order to participate in the program. Once a member of the forum, the webmaster can place his or her Adsense ID in a specified field.

Every time the webmaster starts a new post or topic the Adsense advertisements on the page will display, on a percentage basis, the advertisements of the webmaster and that of the forum owners. Every time the webmasters’ ads are displayed and clicked on he or she will earn the revenue.

The more posts the webmaster make on these forums, the greater the opportunities for generating a passive income from Adsense, even if this is months after the post was made.

Joining revenue-sharing forums

These forums are generally working in the same manner any other forum operates and membership registration is free. Simply sign up for membership and go to your User Control Panel. This is generally the area where the Adsense ID is placed in.

Starting a revenue-sharing forum

Starting a revenue-sharing forum may also be a profitable business for webmasters. There communities often attract very active participants, all with the aim of generating additional income.

The revenue-sharing tactic in these instances is the hook for users to sign up and ensure the successful growth of the forum community.

Currently only a few software caters for revenue-sharing facilities within the forums. One such software is vBulletin – www.vbulletin.com. Unfortunately this software is expensive, but it is better than paying a developer to develop the software for other forums not equipped with revenue-sharing facilities.

List of Revenue-sharing forums

If you are interested in this method of additional income, we have listed a number of revenue-sharing forums and programs below:

http://www.moneyfellas.com/forums | http://forums.workfromhomespot.com/ | http://www.idnforums.com/ | http://www.nameslot.com/index.php | http://www.namepros.com/index.php | http://www.hostnode.com/index.php? | http://www.httppoint.com/ | http://www.senserely.com/ | http://ad-sensing.com/forum/ | http://dnp.in/ | http://www.adsensigg.com/ | http://www.doshdosh.com/ | http://fuelspace.com/ | http://www.funadvice.com/ | http://hubpages.com/tour/affiliate/ | http://www.trendhunter.com/ | http://www.senserely.com/ | http://www.thatsprettydumb.com/ | http://www.qooforum.com/ | http://vubx.com | http://www.yousaytoo.com/ | http://blogevolve.com/ | http://www.bloggerparty.com/ | http://www.bloggeries.com | http://writingcampus.com/node/3 | http://www.soundchilds.net | http://www.music-nerds.com/ | http://www.rateitall.com/wt-rateitall_economy.aspx | http://www.privaterights.com | http://www.articlecodex.com/ | http://www.articletrader.com/ | http://www.articlesrevenue.com | http://www.dotnetspider.com | http://www.guidedawgs.com/ | http://www.scratchprojects.com/ | http://www.shareyourexpertise.com/ | http://ad-sensing.com/forum/ | http://www.httppoint.com/ | http://www.yourfreeforum.com/ | http://www.idnforums.com/ | http://www.internetmarketingforums.net | http://www.revenuesource.com | http://www.seomeeting.com | http://www.thewebmasterforum.net | http://www.totalwebtalk.com/forum/ | http://www.webdigity.com | http://www.webmasters.org/forum/ | http://www.webmastertalk.in | http://www.webmaster-talk.com | http://www.webtalkforums.com | http://www.whooked.com/ | http://efloorplan.com/forum | http://www.dotnetkicks.com/ | http://www.valueinvestingnews.com/ | http://knol.google.com/k/knol/ | http://www.squidoo.com

A while back the Internet saw the launch of a number of exclusive paid forum communities. Despite the fact that these communities charged expensive registration fees to new members wanting to join, they still flourished. Thousands of visitors signed up to these communities, whether the reasons were plain curiosity or a need for the information, the owners of these forums generated hundreds of thousands of Dollars, even millions of Dollars, in income.

The question today asked by a number of webmasters is: ‘Is it still lucrative to start a paid forum?’

Well, although the market is saturated we are of the opinion that the market still has space on offer for more paid forum communities on a number of niches. It will mainly depend on the strategies implemented by the webmaster in developing, designing, establishing and marketing the paid forum community.

Essentially the successful candidate will spend a fair period of time on the website; have access to a large number of friends to start joining the community as well as extensive knowledge and experience on the niche the community will be based upon. Furthermore the candidate will have access to funding required for the successful promotion of the community.

Why paid forum communities?

One advantage of these communities is that members all share the common topics. There will generally be active involvement from all members, which will automatically lead to the growth of the community in future.

Another advantage is the income generation aspect. Webmasters will generate income upon each new member joining the community. In certain instances, annual or monthly membership renewal fees may ensure recurring income.

Webmasters are more likely to sell additional goods and services related to the niche to members. In these communities such sales often flourish and more income can be generated from these sales than anywhere else.

Software required

If you are indeed planning on starting a paid forum community, the next question may be what type of software or scripts may be required to start such community. Essentially we recommend only one script or software for such forum – vBulletin – www.vbulletin.com

vBulletin can be seen as the Rolls Royce of forum software. This is a fully comprehensive script, easy to install and manage, with built-in payment transaction facilities. The software comes with tons of additional add-ons aimed at making the community more interactive and keeps members glued to their screens.

Although available at a price tag of $180 for the owned license, this is an investment the prospective candidate can not afford to miss out on.

Can I expect a lot of traffic?

This will all depend on the niche. Generally paid forum communities focuses on specific niches and will only attract a small percentage of users.

Although traffic is required, a lot of traffic will not mean a lot of members will sign up. The webmaster must plan his forum carefully in order to provide visitors, especially new visitors, with a hook to get them signing up.

Planning the forum

Webmasters should plan the layout of the forum carefully and decide which information will be made publicly accessible and which will remain secured to members only. Public information is of utmost importance if the webmaster wants to provide newcomers with teasing content to get them signing up to the forum.

The webmaster must also differentiate his forum from other publicly accessible forums. There should be exclusive member tools and services, not available elsewhere. Members should be rewarded for signing up to the forum and this can be done by means of give-aways or other rewards publicly advertised.

The forum should be planned to appear professional, in fact, the content need to be professional at all time as paying members will accept nothing less.

A lot of time, marketing and dedication will need to be spent on the forum in order to ensure its success.