Shelley
Well-known member
Your 3ft x 3ft room. How did you possibly manage that?
Forum concept is dying, don't you think so?
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Your 3ft x 3ft room. How did you possibly manage that?
Shelley
Well-known member
I always find it a bit ironic that this topic always takes place on a forum. You never see a Twitter or FB conversation about "OMG, forums are dying, that's why I'm here instead!" taking place.
or
10 years ago "forums are dying"
9 years ago "forums are dying"
8 years ago "forums are dying"
7 years ago "forums are dying"
6 years ago "forums are dying"
5 years ago "forums are dying"
4 years ago "forums are dying"
3 years ago "forums are dying"
2 years ago "forums are dying"
Last Year "forums are dying"
Present day "forums are dying"
next year "forums are dying"
The way i look at it if you deliver an excellent product you'll get a customerbase using your product and/or service.
Amen
The Sandman
Well-known member
This premise here, at least as stated in the title by the OP, is that the concept of forums is "dying". Definitely not.
It is often said that "forums are dying", and indeed some are. In fact, you could make a case that the death rate of forums is increasing relative to the number of new forums coming online - it certainly seems so. There are plenty of possible reasons for this, relating to both the people who own/run forums and the people who use them.
It's pretty obvious that the health of a forum depends on how many people join and become/remain active relative to the number of visitors who either never become active or whose activity diminishes over time.
We (forum admins) tend to believe it's our members who've changed over time, and that social media is the cause. But TBH, owning and running a forum is very different from 10 or 15 years ago. There were always competition but with some effort it was possible to find new niches to explore. And the competition was from other hobbyist or small business forum owners, not large corporate entities aggregating websites. Add to that are the increasing complexity of forum software, styles/frameworks, add-ons, advertising, privacy, security, etc.. It's a lot harder (and certainly more stressful and time consuming) than it used to be and many people don't find it a fun hobby anymore - either they can make money with their forum or they view it as a failure and move on.
Perhaps there is a correlation between the rise in popularity of social media and decline of forum activity. That doesn't mean Facebook killed forums - it means that the same factors that favor social media interaction oppose forum participation. Maybe it's the rapid miniaturization of PEDs (personal electronic devices), or a change in behavior (unwillingness to spend time/effort on things like registering on a forum and setting preferences and such) but that doesn't fully explain any acceleration in the decline in activity by established members.
I personally don't think we're one or two amazing software features away from having forum software that will magically solve the forum activity issue, because I don't think the forum software has all that much to do with the success or failure of a forum per se. If anything, we need PEDs that are somehow more suitable to foruming and/or more users willing to make the effort to register and post.
It is often said that "forums are dying", and indeed some are. In fact, you could make a case that the death rate of forums is increasing relative to the number of new forums coming online - it certainly seems so. There are plenty of possible reasons for this, relating to both the people who own/run forums and the people who use them.
It's pretty obvious that the health of a forum depends on how many people join and become/remain active relative to the number of visitors who either never become active or whose activity diminishes over time.
We (forum admins) tend to believe it's our members who've changed over time, and that social media is the cause. But TBH, owning and running a forum is very different from 10 or 15 years ago. There were always competition but with some effort it was possible to find new niches to explore. And the competition was from other hobbyist or small business forum owners, not large corporate entities aggregating websites. Add to that are the increasing complexity of forum software, styles/frameworks, add-ons, advertising, privacy, security, etc.. It's a lot harder (and certainly more stressful and time consuming) than it used to be and many people don't find it a fun hobby anymore - either they can make money with their forum or they view it as a failure and move on.
Perhaps there is a correlation between the rise in popularity of social media and decline of forum activity. That doesn't mean Facebook killed forums - it means that the same factors that favor social media interaction oppose forum participation. Maybe it's the rapid miniaturization of PEDs (personal electronic devices), or a change in behavior (unwillingness to spend time/effort on things like registering on a forum and setting preferences and such) but that doesn't fully explain any acceleration in the decline in activity by established members.
I personally don't think we're one or two amazing software features away from having forum software that will magically solve the forum activity issue, because I don't think the forum software has all that much to do with the success or failure of a forum per se. If anything, we need PEDs that are somehow more suitable to foruming and/or more users willing to make the effort to register and post.
I agree, I think its more a matter of execution. Ignoring the bias in that I'm specifically aiming to solve this issue; I agree its more in how admins view their boards.
The age of pick a theme pick an add-on works in many situations, sure, but the vast majority of users need a very specific user experience on the modern era or users will quite literally be confused, disoriented, and not feel compelled to post. The experience of forums need to be dramatically improved upon so that when people find content in google they want to contribute to in some way, they know immediately how to do.
- Log in with Google/Facebook as an option? No a requirement.
- Mobile friendly, quick, intuitive experience such as Material or minimalist and definitely mobile first? Not an option, a requirement.
- To the point, simple discussion points instead of hundreds or thousands of forums? Required.
- Content discovery method such as new/trending/latest content? Required.
SneakyDave
Well-known member
I can't name one "successful" new forum that has started in the last 3 years. 90% of them have closed or "been sold".
It depends on what is considered "successful". I have a couple of small forums that make money every month. They don't make a lot of money, but they make money. For me that is successful.
jauburn
Well-known member
I wish it were true.
ScarletCox
Active member
I created my forum on 21 July 2016 and now is one of the most active Xenforo forums on the internet, with peaks of 13,000+ users online,
and a user growth of ~30,000 /month.
SneakyDave
Well-known member
You have 800,000+ posts in 2 years? What's the topic?
ŽivaAkcija
Well-known member
topic/point of no return is/he/shee is so bioactive almost superactive
ChrisTERiS
Well-known member
Dying? I'm finding you very optimist. Already dead. And please don't tell me look at that site, or look at the other site. Sure big boards will continue exists. What I know its that almost 2 years ago, when I decided to do a test checking forum links from my clients, in around 5000 sites, less than 50 were active as forums. Around 100+ were Wordpress sites, and all others were redirection to Advertisments.
PS: As you don't have like me a ready list of forum links, do a test. Goto vb.org and click the signatures of old threads.
PS2: As an example. This site before 2-3 years was active well. Now what? Nothing important. They didn't even moved to SSL
PS: As you don't have like me a ready list of forum links, do a test. Goto vb.org and click the signatures of old threads.
PS2: As an example. This site before 2-3 years was active well. Now what? Nothing important. They didn't even moved to SSL
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Member_68162
Active member
I'm curious about this too. @FrederikP can you please share a link?
jmurrayhead
Well-known member
I can say, personally, there's not much online that I find myself wanting to contribute to anymore. I think it has a lot to do with how the Internet has changed. I definitely have no interest in registering to new sites like I used to. In fact, I'm not an active member on any forums.
My life has started revolving around other types of communities (i.e., twitch/discord), and real life friends. I also have no drive to post a meaningful discussion via a mobile device. It's just too much effort for no real gain for me. I've generally become disinterested in online interactions apart from a select few.
jauburn
Well-known member
Healthy sign. People need to get away from these stupid computers. What a waste of life!
Cody Stallard
Member
Does anyone have any ideas to bring forums back to life? I work for a forum that before 2012 was massively busy! Now, it's rather dull and quiet with not much life. I've tried as much as I can with it, but really struggling now to come up with new ideas.
ScarletCox
Active member
I've said in the other (current) thread about this subject that what you need is a USP. For us that's our culture. Our members come to us to discuss their work with other professionals in a field where treating your work like it's professional is met with scorn (as are most creatives who attempt to earn a living from creativity - cue the outcries about how art should be free and how paying money for it is dirty and unclean), and there are very few places on the internet where they can get that.
For you it may be something different. But it still needs to be something your members can't get on Facebook.
jauburn
Well-known member
Since I don't know what USP is, I don't understand your response.
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