Name of your website?Cruise Freek Forums
Your name?
Tina Rinaldi
Your Location (city, etc)
New York
Please give us a short summary of your website?
Cruise Freek Forums is a cruise message board and we have just gone mobile! We're still new, only months old, but, we're growing, expanding, and improving daily.
What inspired you to launch your own website?
Cruise Freek Forums was launched as an alternative to the other cruise message boards on the Internet.
When did you launch your first website, and what was it?
Cruise Freek Forums was launched in August, 2007 as an alternative to the other cruise message boards on the Internet.
How did you decide on a name for your website?
Naming Cruise Freek Forums was decided on the fly. It was the first name that came to mind and, it seems to fit the message board well.
What makes it different from other, similar offerings?
Cruise Freek Forums feature live chat, free cruise quotes with well established travel agents, and, we have a zero flaming tolerance policy.
What is your eventual goal? (To sell it, keep it for income, secure a book or other mainstream media deal?)
To become the largest and best cruise message board on the Internet and to take the board public (IPO) within two years.
How does your investment of time and money balance against your success?
Cruise Freek Forums is still brand new and we already have over 300 members and we're still growing. It's a bit early to tell if the time and money invested will be successful but, so far it has been well worth it.
If you had an unlimited development budget for development, how would you change your site?
If Cruise Freek Forums had unlimited resources for development, I would be heavily investing into advertising to get us known on the Internet.
If your site got really big, really quickly, would you be able to keep up with the demand?
Yes, Cruise Freek Forums is poised for growth.
What unexpected costs and headaches have you had to deal with?
Unexpected costs and headaches all revolve around advertising and exposure. Advertising has been triple the cost of the price originally estimated and, since Cruise Freek Forums is small we are competing against companies that are well established with much bigger budgets. This has presented many challenges but, we are slowly over coming them.
What has been your biggest challenge?
In a word - exposure. It's been a challenge getting first page exposure on search engines, however, we continue to move up in the rankings and, hopefully as we do, this will help lower our advertising costs.
What method has been most successful for promoting your website?
Word of mouth
How has running your website differed from your expectations?
It's been more successful than I expected, especially in such a short amount of time.
How long have you run the site already, and how long will you continue to keep it up if you don't enjoy big gains in traffic, income or popularity?
Cruise Freek Forums is only months old and, we'll be running indefinitely - at least that is my hope for the site.
What is your website address?
Cruise Freek Forums
