My main source of income is my e-commerce site
www.elite-electronix.com. But thats strictly for consumers. I've learned that BIG money is also in advertising. I used to advertise on
www.gsmarena.com for a while last year. Cost me $1800 just to rotate a damn banner on their site each month. So now I am in the process of makin' my own mobile phone blog, replete with forum and all.
My main goal is to be able to sell ad space to different companies, and let them rotate their banners on my site. Charge em a modest $500 each, then build it up to where I can charge $1500 each by this time next year.
Last I checked, GSMARENA had over 25 advertisers, and I am pretty sure they're all paying close to the $1800 I paid. So you now they makin' bank ( 25 x $1800 = $45,000 per month). I've personally seen checks from Google Adsense totaling more than $3500 per month just from some stupid game forum that used adsense. So money can be made from the net if you have the patience to build it up.
My ultimate game plan is to offer banner ads at $500 per advertiser, use google adsense, and intext keyword advertising from vibrant media to monetize the site. All while advertising my own e-commerce site Elite-Electronix.com both in the forum, and in blog articles on products that I offer at Elite. So I say all that to say this, throw up a forum, fill it with content, and sell ad space on there after you build up your traffic.
works in progress (hopefully done by July or sooner)...
[blog]
www.tronixnews.com
[forum]
www.tronixnews.com/forum