When was the golden age of internet forums?

Amen!

Scott

 

Didn't say I agree with their advertising. I'm saying Reddit Gold is genius. Of course, you need other methods of income for that type of site. Unfortunately, they care more about the community than they do about money.

 

I'd say, as long as they keep concentrating on their community and figure out smart ways to gain revenue, then they'll be ok. I personally just don't get what advantages Reddit has. So for me, it would be hard to be part of their community.

Scott

 

This is true, but I think forums started doing even better back in 2006 when there was a rise for a lot of different forums. Sitepoint was doing well, then Digitalpoint eventually surpassed them in stats. A lot of forums were seeing good growth and even adsense sites were doing well. I don't think forums have ever left either, there's been just a lot of different people involved in the forum world. Some people that were involved years ago may not even be around today. Different players, but the same game. Only the strong survive in this forum industry really.

 

The "Golden Age" for me was 2004-2008. I was apart of several forums and they were massively active each day. Now, they can't even get 50 new posts a day.

I will start up my own forum soon and I hope I can bring some success with it.

 

2004-2009.
When Invision Power Board was in it's prime.
Also back when everyone knew each other even in big communities.
It's really hard to find a good forum these days.
Most are spammy or lacking in quality.

 

It depends on the forum. My site is still going really well. I'm attracting more members and more sponsors.

If a forum can uniquely position itself in a good niche and deliver for it's members the sky is the limit.

For well positioned forums the best is yet to come.
For forums which try to be a one-size-fits-all and too general to keep unique members their time is up primarily thanks to the big-name social media.

 

From my experience - right now! Forums are spiking up rapidly. There are all sorts of people on forums, not just 'geeks', and more keeps coming. With a good niche and marketing, forum will keep growing for years to come.