Creating Social Site, Have a huge DB, Import or Invite them as users?

I run a very large martial arts site. It has a very active forum. I am creating a new site www.martialfighter.com that will have similar features as my other site, but greatly improved with more features.

I have about an 80,000 person user database. I am debating whether to just merge the database into my new site, and inform everyone that they are now users on the new site.

OR

Do a mass invite through the new site to all the members.

Suggestions? Ideas?

 

I think you should simply import the DB, close down the other site and redirect all the traffic to your new site and forum and simply send your users a notice that the old site has been improved and moved to a new location. Not importing the DB and just inviting the users to your new site/forum will cause you to loose some of them. Some would think "why should I register for another martial arts forum if I'm already a member on this one?"
That's just my opinion
Best of luck

 

jul the setback on that, is the that the other site is earning about $60 a day just in adsense and is very popular.

 

id import it, send an email that it is part of the same group who own your current site (so they dont think its SPAM or youve sold their emails) telling them they are members, and explain the benefits of both sites.
hope that helps. good luck!

 

Creating competing sites is a strategy used by some people to maximize their coverage of a market segment. But, in this case, I would ask why are you bothering to create a competing site when the current site is doing so well. Why not focus instead on a different, but somewhat related field in the new site in an effort to expand you market.

I say this because you clearly do not want to shut down the existing siste because it is making $60 a day in advertising revenue and is very popular. Having two sites and asking your existing audience to belong to both is not going to double your revenue. The strong site will probably remain as is and the new site will go through the lengthy process of building traffic. But, at some point you will be forced to decide which is most important and assert that that is the primary site.

 

i think it would be a good idea to merge your old site with the new... like pangea said to make sure they know it is not spam and you are actually merging it... make sure they feel comfortable with switching. if you do one big invite then you are going to lose many members just b/c they didn't want to start a new account

 

The current site has a decent phpBB forum with little or no social interaction. The vision of that site was always to be a social environment for martial artists. I actually tried to enhance it myself and create the environment, but the focus of the business changed. The new site is meant to be the social and interactive community that the other one never was. Focusing more on providing tools for businesses and people to interact with each other. There are a lot of other sites out there trying to do it, but doing it wrong. So I wanted to start with a good solid base of members that have a relationship with me instead of trying to build a new one.

I do think it would be a good idea importing them all and then informing them they are all members, with the same password, and the new features.