Finding An 'Un-Touched' Forum Niche

[Papworth]

How do people do it these days? The trouble is, all forum topics that could potentially make you a large profit, have already been exploited by other site owners, meaning you are trying to compete in a flooded market.

So how do we go about finding un-touched, or very incompetitive niches these days? I have been buying/selling forums now for a good 2-3 years, but have only made minimal profits if I'm being truthful.

Now it seems, the only way to be successful when owning a forum would be to buy a 'ready-developed' forum, invest alot of money into starting a forum in an already competitive market, or keep a lookout for upcoming US TV shows, which are likely to be big hits.

Does anyone else have any ideas on going about finding forum success? Hopefully, we can make this thread into an interesting and educational read.

[Darren]

Upcoming TV shows isn't a bad idea but once again your going into another flooded market as teh TV execs have usually beaten you there with an "official" website of their own, unless you can offer and alternative view of the show it still seems like your fighting the tide anyway only this time against (usually) a huge multinational

[fiona2412]

Here comes the dumb blonde reply lol (not that I'm blonde though)

I know it sounds daft but I didn't realise you could make money on the net, obviously if you have something to sell 'a product' then yeah or you were offering a membership area where people had to pay, but with site's like these etc etc I really didn't know you could make cash on them.

As for a 'niche' in the market I can't help you there as said any gaps in the market with regards to TV shows either in the US or over the pond in the UK are normally already covered by the network. Take for example X-Factor (similar to american idol and hosted by Simon Cowell) ITV has the official website but this hasn't stopped numerous un-official sites springing up left and right center. Whether they make any money I don't know.

Good luck in your quest

Hugs
Fi
xoxo

[pfgannon]

Most US TV shows don't have official forums. THe problem I see with TV shows is that they can get cancelled and then you're left with a dead forum, and you've wasted a good chunk of money.

The music forum I'm working on hasn't picked up much speed, and I don't see it actually happening till I get the rest of my site up. Music is obviously a largly oversaturated market and I will find it very hard to compete especially without any money.

[tony]

it has to be soething you think of, in all hoesty i dont think people who are earning money are going to be giving you ideas.

The only suggestion i can give is working based on your example of TV shows, how about a site that is based on a TV genre instead of 1 individual programme? perhapse start a few sites (i dont watch TV anymore but bare with me as i dont know whats on TV)
such as 1 for friends, 1 for will and grace 1 for some other type of comedy series, then link them all together after a year or so on 1 big site which has a section for them all?