I am the Senior Admin on one of the largest and most successful watch forums on the internet. We average near 900 posts per day and 382,000 hits per month. About a year and a half ago we started using advertising as the costs of maintain the venture were clearly over and above what the owner had envisioned. We do not allow pop ups or other junk type ads and the content is limited to watches and watch accesories like bracelets, straps, tools, etc.

You can check HERE to see what I mean. If you click on a post you will see the advertising at the top of the page. The ads on the Main page cost FAR more as they are far more prominent.

As far as software goes, I have used it all...I prefer webbbs but that is old school It allows for more of a chat room atmosphere but is not feature intense! WOWbbs and ProBoards seem okay too...

Good luck...we did a server and software migration about 2.5 years ago now and after the bugs got worked out we really took off

Regards, Ted