Customizing SMF > Building Your Community and other Forum Advice
Help, forum dying
Krash.:
Nobody would buy, and certainly not eat, a McDonalds dogburger if it came in a little brown bag. Basic principle of marketing is that packaging is more important than product, especially in a graphics intensive environment like the web.
Kindred:
I disagree and can prove it.
I ran a successful forum using the default theme for 2 years before I upgraded to a custom theme.
to match your example - McDonalds indeed does use BROWN PAPER BAGS with only minor logos on them, in my area.
in their case, as in the case of forums... CONTENT is what matters. What's in the bag matters more than the bag itself.
Arantor:
You can run successful forums with no custom theme, sure. But you're still missing my point: there is more to doing it than just getting people to the forum - content is what gets them there, but if it's badly presented, they won't go back, no matter how good the content is.
Would 40k Online be as successful were it using the default theme, for example?
Having a forum that looks distinctive is important for some niches, where anything at all is a differentiation factor.
Kindred:
oh, I agree Arantor...
the missing files make for a poor presentation and will "scare off" most users.
The default theme, however, works just fine, if you have the content.
Arantor:
I'd say it depends very much on the niche, actually.
Say a graphic design forum. What does it say about the forum if it's using the default theme?
What about a gaming forum?
I'm sure you can think of other examples, where going down the generic road just isn't enough.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version