Ninja Post: The Usain Bolt of Forum Software

We are fanatical about speed. Why? Software that is fast and responsive—especially on the web—makes for a better user experience. When pages load quickly, users are more likely to stick around and participate. This is one of the ways that we combat participation inequality.

Forum software can be a resource hog. If you’re hosting your own forum, it can slow down (or sometimes crash) the rest of your site. Since Ninja Post is a cloud-based service that integrates with your URL, it not only ensures that your forum keeps moving quickly but it frees up resources on your own server to ensure that other aspects of your site load rapidly too.

Instead of saying that Ninja Post is insanely fast, we say that it is Usain-ly fast.

Usain Bolt

Posted by Mike Wilt on April 8, 2010 under General Discussion
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Engaging Users and “Homefield Advantage”

Today Mashable posted “4 Easy Ways to Engage Your Facebook Fans”. This article refers specifically to Facebook, but the concepts are applicable to any online community and dovetail with yesterday’s post to the Ninja Post blog, “Traction For Your Forum”. The four methods to engage users described in the Mashable blog post are:

  • Ask Their Opinion
  • Test Their Knowledge
  • Pair Promotions with Content
  • Thank Your Fans

However, this does beg the question: if you can engage with your users on Facebook, why bother creating a Ninja Post forum? Well, Ninja Post is not designed to replace your Facebook fan page — it’s supposed to complement it.

By channeling users from Facebook to your site you will obtain a “home field advantage”. For example, user content generated thanks to a forum on your own site will increase your presence in organic search results which will drive more users to your site. In addition, there are other benefits to “holding the conversation” on your own turf: advertising revenue, user statistics, and control over the look and feel of the site.

In sum, continue to engage with your users on Facebook, Twitter, and elsewhere on the web. However, don’t underestimate the importance of “home field advantage.”

Posted by Mike Wilt on March 19, 2010 under General Discussion
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The 90-9-1 Rule

The “90-9-1″ Rule states:

In most online communities, 90% of users are lurkers who never contribute, 9% of users contribute a little, and 1% of users account for almost all the action.

Participation Inequality Pyramid

One of our goals with Ninja Post is to achieve a more equitable participation distribution in online communities. To combat this phenomenon, known as “participation inequality” we have made the following items cornerstones of Ninja Post software:

  • Make it fast and easy to sign up.
  • Make the site fast and responsive – this is CRUCIAL!
  • Send email alerts when one of their threads is updated to draw users back to the site.
  • Allow users to vote a post up or down as a way to get involved without having to compose a reply.

We’re also considering other ways to entice—and enhance—participation. For example, eBay’s reputation system and other “reward mechanisms” are models that we’re considering.

Posted by Mike Wilt on March 7, 2010 under General Discussion
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