Member Avatar for BigBlueBall

My main site has been active for 3-1/2 years, but we've grown considerably in the past year and it's time for to refresh things.

At the stroke of midnight, New Year's Eve on Christmas Island in the Pacific Ocean (the first time zone to pass into 2005), we're kicking off a 24-hour online launch party. I'm hoping to generate some enthusiasm and reinvigorate the community.

Why a launch party? We have some big changes in store. We're moving to a dedicated server. We're updating the site with a whole new design. We're switching from Snitz Forums (running ASP) to vBulletin, and adding a lot of new features.

So what are we doing? Well, we're planning hosted IRC chats, contests with prizes, including an instant messaging trivia contest, arcade competition and a mind-bending lyrics game created by one of our moderators. We'll also have webcams sharing some of the real-world New Year's celebrations, and a virtual guestbook where members can share their favorite BigBlueBall memories, best wishes for the new year, and post photos from their New Years celebrations.

We were accepted as a Google News feed last month, so some of this will no doubt be picked up by them. I also submitted my first ever press release via PRweb; it'll be interesting to see what if any response that brings.

It will be interesting to see what impact this has on the site going into our fourth year.

I'd love to hear back from the rest of you and get your feedback on the concept.

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Nice example of a community boost and what to plan for next time. 's event shows that a single well-timed activity can reawaken dormant users and create useful buzz. 's caution about timing and 's request for follow-up underscore two points: prepare the mechanics in advance, and decide how you will measure success.

Practical pre-launch checklist (do these early)

  • Technical: run a staged load test, lower DNS TTL 48+ hours before, cache static assets, prepare DB backups and a tested rollback plan, and make sure real-time services (chat, streaming) are stress-tested.
  • Migration/URLs: if moving platforms, test user imports on a copy, preserve user IDs where possible, and implement 301 redirects for legacy threads to protect SEO.
  • Operations: schedule moderators across time zones, pre-write FAQs and canned responses, and prepare a simple incident playbook for outages.
  • Tracking: set UTM tags for every announcement channel, create analytics goals (signup, post, session duration), and baseline pre-event metrics so you can show lift.

Post-launch priorities

  • Follow up within 24–72 hours with a summary email and highlight reel. Turn ephemeral content into evergreen entries (how-it-went post, screenshots, curated user stories).
  • Measure retention (day 1, day 7, day 30) rather than just raw signups. Look at referral sources and conversion funnels to see which promotion worked.
  • Keep momentum with small recurring events rather than one big push. Recognition mechanics (titles, profile flair, short-lived perks) help convert first-time participants into repeat contributors.

Cautions

  • Avoid overpromising prizes or features you cannot deliver. Test every external integration (payment gateways, streaming embeds) beforehand. Treat PR and news pickups as amplification, not the only success metric.

This checklist is meant to complement the experiences described by , and and to provide practical steps for running repeatable, measurable launch events.

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Member Avatar for Dani

I definitely think that a launch party, and everything you are doing for it, is a superb idea. It's great for word-of-mouth marketing as well. The only thing that I am not entirely sure of is your idea to host it on New Year's Eve. That is usually a time when people are out partying and celebrating the New Year - I'm sure there are going to be a handful of people who would have otherwise checked out your launch party if it wasn't for the date. When trying to drive traffic to your site, it's hard enough to compete with all of the other great stuff to do online. But now you are trying to compete with people's offline real lives as well.

Member Avatar for BigBlueBall

We'll see. The convient thing is that it's always turning midnight somewhere in the world, so even if you have plans in the real world, you can join in the online celebration with other folks on the other side in the morning or the middle of the day. :)

Member Avatar for Danny

BigBlueBall, how did the party go? I'm curious to see how effective it was despite the fact that New Years Eve is such a celebrated event.

Member Avatar for BigBlueBall

The launch party went very well. The IRC channel was very busy all day, and has remained active ever since. I awarded everyone who signed the "guestbook" on New Year's Eve with launch party badges next to their name in their forum posts.

The net result was that many members crawled out from the woodworks and posted again for the first time in ages... months or even years for a few. New registrations for January are up by >30% and people are enthusiastic about the changes.

The buzz factor is probably the greatest benefit. Regardless of the actual number of people who participated, I can leverage the buzz from the event for months to come. Those first-time visitors to the site will not know how many people participated, but they will see the news about it and have a positive impression that the site is active, dynamic and growing.

Member Avatar for Dani

Fantastic. Congratulations! I'm very glad it all worked out so well for you. Never would have expected it, to tell you the truth.

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