Is it smart to make a similar website niche to someone else?

[Chelloa]

Ok so lets say i want to make a coding forum, but theirs already another coding forum out their with like 60,000 registered users. Is it it possible to actually make a similar niche to that one, and end up becoming successful? Or are your odds against you?

And obviously anything is possible, but i'm just wondering if i should do something like this.

BTW the niche coding was an example. I want to start something else.

[King]

There's hope for your site regardless of your competition. You just need to work to make your site better than your competitions.

[Chelloa]

There's hope for your site regardless of your competition. You just need to work to make your site better than your competitions.

Well somethings just cannot be better. Communities can always vary, one can be more mature than the other. But some features i just cannot make.

It kind of reminds of the Vimeo vs Youtube debates.
Yotube has features vimeo doesnt have. And vimeo has some features that youtube doesn't have.

Youtube has a a large community, but the content is usually crap, and theirs a ton of trolls. While Vimeo has a smaller community, but everything is more hq and profesional.


I guess what it comes down to, is it's all based on opinions on the forum?

---

Someone on HF gave me a pretty good response.

Code:

teckrat Wrote:  
There is already a more-popular forum for everything. It all depends on the site features, functionality, community, etc... Your objective is not to be as good as the other "similar" forum. Your objective is to be better.

And it's similar to what you wrote. It makes a ton of sense. But now what i'm thinking is, can i rely on being different, rather then better than the other forum? Same niche, but different style of posting, different community. Maybe this is the way to go.

[King]

Don't aim to be different. Aim to be better. Facebook and MySpace, for example. Who was the most popular social network for many years? MySpace, by a long shot. Who is now? That's right. You just need to believe in what you're doing.

[Chelloa]

Don't aim to be different. Aim to be better. Facebook and MySpace, for example. Who was the most popular social network for many years? MySpace, by a long shot. Who is now? That's right. You just need to believe in what you're doing.

Thanks for the replies, helped a lot. I'll try to make mine better somehow.

[King]

Thanks for the replies, helped a lot. I'll try to make mine better somehow.

Let me know when it goes live. I'd love to help out and see your progress.

[Omniscient]

Any website should have clear direction and that doesn't include statements like "we're like X site without the X". If you're already trying to make heavy comparisons then you've failed.

[Chelloa]

Any website should have clear direction and that doesn't include statements like "we're like X site without the X". If you're already trying to make heavy comparisons then you've failed.

Thanks for the reply Omni, coming from you that means a lot, you're a wonderful admin.
(being a kiss ass here.)

I know my competition, and i believe everyone should. I do keep track of my competitors, but i wouldn't mindlessly copy them. I simply keep track of their user count, their SEO and stuff like that. Also i do make comparisons with competitors, but shouldn't everyone. Don't you ever wonder who your competitors are, and what they do differently to get to where they are?

[iFaTaLiTy]

I honestly think so , As long as you know how to market it and build the rankings of it there is hope for everything .

[OFWGKTΔ]

You would need to start off with a decent member base, and put up more high quality content then the competitors forum.