Hundreds of users, but not much talking. any tips?

How to get a forum going

[rschuil]

Hi all,

Since a few days I've got my fancy web 2.0 forum community up and running. It is based on tagging, like Del.icio.us.
Since day #1 I've got several hundreds of users, but not much talking is going on. It is what I expected; if users don't see active discussions, they won't start one themselves. The classic Chicken vs. Egg problem.
Does anyone has got any suggestions how to get it going? I'm confident that users will start replying when others start a thread, but how to get them to do that?
Thanks for your time.

Best regards,

Robin

[edited by: rogerd at 12:20 pm (utc) on May 5, 2006]
[edit reason] No specifics or URLs, please. [/edit]

[rogerd]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld, Robin. Check the Community Building Library [webmasterworld.com] for some past discussion on this, in particular "Pulling Forum Lurkers out of Hiding" and "Starting a Web Community".

You (and any associates) may have to start the ball rolling with some heavy posting yourselves.

[Mistra]

Get your little brothers or nephewa to help. They would be eager to post. :D

[wmuser]

Correct people dont post if they dont see active discussion
You will need to open new and interesting threads yourself untill peopel start talking then you can set mods so they start opening threads as well
There are also a number paid webmasters which can post for $$$

"fancy web 2.0 " may i know which forum software is it?

[rschuil]

Thanks for your replies. Unfortunately I have no little brothers, but I'll pull together a team to start topics :)

Regarding the software: it was developed by myself, using PHP and the Yellow Duck Framework.