Ok I am being a bit blunt here but - Your site needs to have a better structure - It is a bit confusing and did not tell me anything about your site in the first 10 secs I was there.

Second, like I suggested earlier, you will have to prove to people that your system works! For this, you will need to show them some activity.

Reduce the number of forums you have to increase the cumulative post count in them (you can always split them when you have more activity).

Rather than having fillers in your directory - do some blind listings and actually go and tell those people that you've listed them on your site. Tell them the ways they can modify their listings. Get them involved!

Give some local press releases! I know that there is one publication which is in competition with you. However, you don't know if they also won't mind mentioning you in their publication.

Get associated with some charities and causes so as to get some publicity and get people hooked to your site.

I hope that helps.