I have been looking at Nairalands growth. I got excited when the forum first reached a quarter of a million users (250,000 users). Now at Half a million users, I believe the site achieved this for 3 reasons,

1. Its first mover advantage. Nairaland has been around since 2001. <<Admin Says: No, March 2005>>

2. Viral growth.

3. User engagement.

What do you think?

I explain my points in detail here naijastartups..com/2010/06/startup-lessons-3-ways-nairaland-got-so.html

there are lots of people on here who have 2/3 or more username. i should know, i have 2myself (although i never used the other one: MRBROWNJ)
when i was banned, i created this other username to ask why i was banned on here and never used it ever again.
if you remove all these second usernames along with the people who have multiple "undercover usernames", the numbers will be much more lower than that.

1)  Every forum on the Internet allows you to register multiple usernames, if you have multiple email addresses.  So if despite that they still can't have 500,000 user accounts, it shows nairaland is still much bigger than them.

2)  Addicts like MrBrownjay with multiple accounts are in the minority.  I'd be surprised if we don't have 500,000 or more actual unique users, which frankly is still a lot.

3)  According to Alexa, Nairaland has been the Number one local site in Nigeria for quite a while.  Many regular users of nairaland are not even registered; so you have to consider that too.

Seun:

1)  Every forum on the Internet allows you to register multiple usernames, if you have multiple email addresses.  So if despite that they still can't have 500,000 user accounts, it shows nairaland is still much bigger than them.

2)  Crazy addicts like MrBrownjay with multiple accounts are in the minority.  I'd be surprised if we don't have 500,000 or more actual unique users, which frankly is still a lot.

3)  According to Alexa, Nairaland has been the Number one local site in Nigeria for quite a while.  Many regular users of nairaland are not even registered; it's not really an important statistic.

@MRbrownJAY I agree with you some users have 2 accounts for underground moves or some are forgotten accounts. but I don't think there number is much. I still believe Nairaland is in the 500k user range and if u look at the numbers, the site is still growing fast. (by the way, nice new account name )

@Seun Yea correct. Nairaland has been #1 in Nigeria on Alexa most visited sites for a long time. I wrote details on why and how I think Nairaland did this on my blog link above, It would be good if you check out what I have written and make clear what needs to be. Expecting a discussion there,

Seun:

1)  Every forum on the Internet allows you to register multiple usernames, if you have multiple email addresses.  So if despite that they still can't have 500,000 user accounts, it shows nairaland is still much bigger than them.

2)  Addicts like MrBrownjay with multiple accounts are in the minority.  I'd be surprised if we don't have 500,000 or more actual unique users, which frankly is still a lot.

3)  According to Alexa, Nairaland has been the Number one local site in Nigeria for quite a while.  Many regular users of nairaland are not even registered; so you have to consider that too.

woah, Seun has a sense of humour?! blimey! come on, just check all the unbanme username to understand the problem. . . . . . .  so in real sense, although NL may have 500K PROFILES, it doesnt have 500K MEMBERS.
although no one is saying that NL AINT the number one social site in 9ja.

btw Seun, if you could be as quick to unban people as you were quick to reply to this thread, NL would be a funkier place.

i keep seeing sites with millions of posts/views and not as many users as nairaland though.


what does that imply?

@tpiah. May be that implies engagement. Users on the sites with millions of posts are more engaged with the site and other users than those on Nairaland. Remmember, Most of the Posts could be spam, Many forum owners even pay people to post (very true).

Some people are on their tenth ID and they're not really in the minority. 

Some have 2 posts since 2006 while others haven't visited Nairaland in ages yet they're among the 500,000.

Take all these facts into consideration and maybe the population would still be greater than other Nigerian forums but not nearly as much as its current amount.

chiogo:

Some people are on their tenth ID and they're not really in the minority.

True!!

The banning thing was getting very annoying. I was on a thread were some assh*le was advocating genocide on my ethnic group, and I replied him this time advocating triple revenge and GBAM!! I got banned!! It wasnt in the slightest bit amusing. I waited for months hoping they would unban me and yet nothing. And I had racked up close to 2000 posts on that I.d.

So this is my 4th I.D. _{(By the way, I only ever use one at any point in time. the other I.d's are domant)}

chiogo:

Take all these facts into consideration and maybe the population would still be greater than other Nigerian forums but not nearly as much as its current amount.

I agree.

becomerich has at least 1,000 of those names
Tpia has about 125
aloy emeka has 140
Sauron has 10
davidylan has about 7
hotfunmi 25
jennykady 500
flgators  600
lamidi Obi 200



People get banned but are still counted as users

Then all those fraudsters selling things with multiple names equal about 400,000

0hsisi:

becomerich has at least 1,000 of those names
Tpia has about 125
aloy emeka has 140
Sauron has 10
davidylan has about 7
hotfunmi 25
jennykady 500
flgators  600
lamidi Obi 200



People get banned but are still counted as users

Then all those fraudsters selling things with multiple names equal about 400,000

Seun:

1) Every forum on the Internet allows you to register multiple usernames, if you have multiple email addresses. So if despite that they still can't have 500,000 user accounts, it shows nairaland is still much bigger than them.

2) Addicts like MrBrownjay with multiple accounts are in the minority. I'd be surprised if we don't have 500,000 or more actual unique users, which frankly is still a lot.

3) According to Alexa, Nairaland has been the Number one local site in Nigeria for quite a while. Many regular users of nairaland are not even registered; so you have to consider that too.

I am particularly impressed at the way many writers I respect, like Professor Pius Adesanmi, Daniel Elombah and a few others I read, quote NL in their write-ups I read elsewhere.

0hsisi:

becomerich has at least 1,000 of those names
Tpia has about 125
aloy emeka has 140
Sauron has 10
davidylan has about 7
hotfunmi 25
jennykady 500
flgators 600
lamidi Obi 200



People get banned but are still counted as users

Then all those fraudsters selling things with multiple names equal about 400,000

you nko. 50
noetic1-15
Abuzola0-5

Can seun do something about the new people registering these days,they seem to have escaped from thesame institution. Mr Anus changed to Mr C0rk still waiting for him adopt Mr uterus. And dont get me going about MOBO444.

If they go on like this,they would make good people leave this site en masse

lmao @ my anus & mr cork

v mobile made it popular when they added a link to their homepage then

I suspect that the actual number registered users is in the region of about 250,000 and a third of that are active users which considerable a lot as far as the internet is concerned


At any given time - maybe peak hours 11am - 6pm you probably have 500 - 700 concurrent users and over 365 day period we talking of about 237,000 unique NL IDS

Therefore the real unique active registered users are in region of about 250,000 and another 50,000 users who unregistered users who came via various search engine.