Forums are dying - well people have been saying that

I think as long as there is content to be read and questions to be asked, forums will be here for a long long time.

 

Hey if anything, with all the crap and drama that goes on at social networks, forums may eventually be the big thing again...

 

One thing for sure is that forums are way better than social networks because you get involved in more productive discussions in here. Not to take away anything from social networks because they are indeed useful but I would prefer to spend more time on forums than social networks and will gain more knowledge from the former.

 

I think it was the big thing a long time ago. Without forums, I don't believe we'd have so many social networking sites has we do today.

 

Agreed.

 

Some of you are too young, you've not been both running forums, and more so (using them for discussion) long enough to see the difference compared to now. Sure, you'll always get some forums doing well. But generally speaking forums are struggling like mad today, and you argue it's not the case because you're all forums owners, or interested in forums so have a pretty one sided view (wearing blinkers). You're a very small minority, most live only for Facebook that I know, they don't use forums at all (full stop).

How many members do you have on-line here right now posting messages on this forum board, how many are on Admin Extra or Admin Addict right now doing the same, even the one that DoJo owns and a few others I could mention like it (which are all dead).

Do I need carry on.... The proof is in what you actually see happening (or lack off). You can argue I'm wrong till you're pink in the face, but go look around at the forums I've mentioned and others you have bookmarked like them, it's a similar story all the time - day in, day out.

This forum, Brandon has imported a lot of stuff here to be indexed, he also does a lot of back-linking to here from other sites he runs to drive traffic this way. So why is this forum still going pretty much unused?

 

This is an interesting take on it.

I think it's because supply is exceeding demand. The same principle is true in any market and with regards to any product. There's way too many admin forums and they do relatively little to differentiate themselves from one another. That doesn't necessarily mean the medium or platform is to blame, though.

If you look at forums that do differentiate themselves and cater to a specific community I think you'll find that there isn't another social media platform that can fully satisfy that community's demand the way a forum can.

 

It's probably supply and demand as said. The admin forum niche just isn't that big (and it's already flawed by the fact it's relying on people to post more on a third party site than their own). Would The Admin Zone, Admin Talk, Admin Addict, Admin Extra, Top Admin, Another Admin Forum and Admin Peak be doing better if they just one or two forums? Definitely. Problem is, everyone wants a slice of a market that isn't big enough to cope.

 

Forums cater to different kinds of people coming from all over the world while social media caters only to a certain group of friends. Let's take a look at how Facebook works. You accept people you know and you reject people you don't know. This is is contrast to how forum members socialize because when it comes to forums, you mingle with people that you haven't seen before. This is the reason why forums are here to stay.

 

Even if forums are decreasing in popularity (I'm not saying they are, I'm just saying if), their's still no shortage of people who are still using online forums.

 

I don't see forums ever dieing either, they generate tons of content, and people will continue to find forums, and post. It's crazy that people think social media sites will kill forums, if anything there helping some forums grow at a faster pace.

 

Not to mention as search engines grow in popularity those with forums that are ranking well are probably going to grow more in the long run as well. Especially as word as mouth becomes more powerful too. Thoughts?

 

They're sites that allow normal people to ask thousands of companies and organizations questions.

 

You do know that question and answer sites could be used to come out with new threads ideas? It's another tactic that you could use to seed your online community. Heck, embrace them because they can help you. And plus, Twitter and Facebook have their own lives. As do forums, we're two different aspects of social networking. Forums have been around for as long as I can remember where Social networking sites aren't so old. Forums will never ever be replaced by anything. You'll just see new features coming out from those that develop for forum software.

 

I don't think they'll ever be able to invent sites on the internet that will pull away most who comment on forums. The reason I don't think online forums will ever die is because, for one thing, their are so many people who use the internet, and second, forums are so cool in the minds of many (and myself).

 

We're experiencing a huge growth still. Forums are big on our part. You guys close yourself off to a common forum type: General, Chat, etc forums. Those are a dime a dozen and everyone and their Rich Uncle Lenny has one. RPGs are at an all time high, with many successful taking off all the time. RPGs are a big field that people tend to overlook when it comes to forums.

We're not dying. The forum I admin at is not dying at all. We're experiencing our highest levels of traffic ever. We took down an entire DimeNoc node due to too much load once!