Still a few days early, but Canada day marks the 1 year anniversary of Menz.Life launching. This began with Altay and I joking around on Perb private messages to start our own Gentlemen's club - and leave these pink ponys to their feminist pastures. A PHP forum is a 30 year old technology, not hard to setup, and still very useful - I thought to myself. So here we are after 1 year.
Menz has grown fast! Honestly, I am amazed because we do nothing at all to promote it. This month, we broke all-time records again with over 600 visitors in a single day and 5,500 visitors in June. We've gone from just two people a month to nearly six thousand a month—without a single site linking to us. Not one. And we haven't spent even $1 on advertising. We didn't even register with Google until six months ago. How does it keep growing?
Additionally, the traffic is very localized to Vancouver. None of the other forums on Menz—such as Toronto or Calgary—are active. I think this is because the Perb moderators went overboard, acting outside of a moderators usual behavior. Probably Terb and Merb have moderators who are more level-headed. Perb's moderators went trigger-happy, banning hundreds of users—including long-time members—for absurd and trivial reasons. Initially, Perb felt threatened by Menz—they even went as far as banning users who signed up at Menz with the same username! Most users on Menz are former Perb users who migrated over. I think this is a big reason why Menz has grown so quickly— because it’s a migration from an existing platform.
Launching a website and achieving network effects is very challenging, but Menz has done it! There is a lot of potential for growth in the next year. I originally wanted to create an alternative to Leolist and Tryst— the forum was just a quick second thought to get something up. But the forum quickly became the main feature users wanted. There is a significant void in Vancouver because Perb is not what it claims to be. It’s not a review board—as it turns out, it’s an advertising board. Accurate reviews are hard to find on Perb, which is why people are turning here now.
For now, I am okay with Menz existing as an alternative to Perb. However, we do need to find a solution to the moderation. Being a moderator requires immersing myself in the world of escorts every day. There’s no option to take a break—it's hookers 24/7 for an entire year straight. I’d like to be able to take a week or two off from interacting with escorts. Soon I will delegate moderation powers to trusted users. It might not work, but we’ll give it a try. Sorry I haven’t been able to update the site lately—I will do so soon.
I also plan to make the top banner a rotating banner, linking to various sites. However, I’m not sure who we should link to. Any suggestions? I want to keep things as clean and simple as possible. I hate how cluttered and ugly Perb is, and I refuse to link to porn sites.
Please respond on this thread with any suggestions or feedback on how to improve Menz.
Menz has grown fast! Honestly, I am amazed because we do nothing at all to promote it. This month, we broke all-time records again with over 600 visitors in a single day and 5,500 visitors in June. We've gone from just two people a month to nearly six thousand a month—without a single site linking to us. Not one. And we haven't spent even $1 on advertising. We didn't even register with Google until six months ago. How does it keep growing?
Additionally, the traffic is very localized to Vancouver. None of the other forums on Menz—such as Toronto or Calgary—are active. I think this is because the Perb moderators went overboard, acting outside of a moderators usual behavior. Probably Terb and Merb have moderators who are more level-headed. Perb's moderators went trigger-happy, banning hundreds of users—including long-time members—for absurd and trivial reasons. Initially, Perb felt threatened by Menz—they even went as far as banning users who signed up at Menz with the same username! Most users on Menz are former Perb users who migrated over. I think this is a big reason why Menz has grown so quickly— because it’s a migration from an existing platform.
Launching a website and achieving network effects is very challenging, but Menz has done it! There is a lot of potential for growth in the next year. I originally wanted to create an alternative to Leolist and Tryst— the forum was just a quick second thought to get something up. But the forum quickly became the main feature users wanted. There is a significant void in Vancouver because Perb is not what it claims to be. It’s not a review board—as it turns out, it’s an advertising board. Accurate reviews are hard to find on Perb, which is why people are turning here now.
For now, I am okay with Menz existing as an alternative to Perb. However, we do need to find a solution to the moderation. Being a moderator requires immersing myself in the world of escorts every day. There’s no option to take a break—it's hookers 24/7 for an entire year straight. I’d like to be able to take a week or two off from interacting with escorts. Soon I will delegate moderation powers to trusted users. It might not work, but we’ll give it a try. Sorry I haven’t been able to update the site lately—I will do so soon.
I also plan to make the top banner a rotating banner, linking to various sites. However, I’m not sure who we should link to. Any suggestions? I want to keep things as clean and simple as possible. I hate how cluttered and ugly Perb is, and I refuse to link to porn sites.
Please respond on this thread with any suggestions or feedback on how to improve Menz.