Matt,
This is almost a discussion for a board room, in person.
As business goes, we obviously have the customer side of the fence, who wants value added with low cost, and the "house" side, that wants a desirable product that increases customers & maximizes profit.
The reason I bring up Business 101, is because all the message boards I have seen, as they have grown & tried to integrate more & more on their site, have either turned into a children's zoo (Yahoo), or collapsed onto themself (many examples where they are mere shells of a message board now). Technology ran ahead of their business acumen.
I do not know who the technical expert here is (certainly not me), but, as with all business, don't try to expand too fast, or all at once.
The real time quote idea from Jake is a good start. A controlled amount of ads is OK (just don't go the pop-up route which ruins the whole experience). Of course, make sure your sight can handle all the features & all the traffic, well beforehand.
I too think Ameritrade is about the best overall online broker out there (except for the poor people who came over with Datek). I think that's a worthwhile idea to get a "sub to iHub" when you sign up with Ameritrade (& having the real time quotes on the board page will be a good added value, so you can visit the board without losing track of the stock price and/or have to jump back around to another page).
It warrants further discussion...Oh, I just had a rather ambitious thought: Since message boards include boards of other topics as well as stocks, maybe try to become a standardized program that comes already loaded on your new Dell, Gateway, HP, IBM, et.al.
"Get in touch with people right away on your new PC, using the Hub, and they can add to and even help you with your online experience."
To be continued...
~FRED8
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