Forums Dying?

There's a few things to keep in mind in todays' social world online that directly impact forums in all niches. it's these things that may or may not make forum based sites seem like they are falling through the cracks.

1.) More people today know how to use & install their own Blog scripts. These same people have learned that content is king. With that in mind, it's understandable that these bloggers have started posting a little less on forums in order to build up their own content topics. However, there is a new type of forum poster that emerged from this as well, the ones that post 1 paragraph & then link back to their blog as the article source. (This may or may not even things out depending on your linking policy for self promotion, not allowing it means you just lost a portion of your blogging members that evolved).

2.) As with #1, more people today know how to use & install forum scripts. It's common now days with all the BUZZ in mainstream media about becoming an online entrepreneur to make money, that long time members of your community start to branch off and start their own forums with the knowledge they learned. This obviously creates a new competitor (for the ones starting in the same niche, which is very common). It's the classic case of "Apprentice competes with teacher".

3.) With the boost of all the new social networks such as but not limited to: Facebook, Myspace, Linkedin, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, Youtube, Meetup, etc.. People have less and less available time to be able to contribute on ALL the communities, so they end up selecting a small handful of the ones they feel provide the best impact for them to focus on. By doing so, even with bookmark and account coop's with some of the other social networks, it's common for people to drop the forum's daily visits and maybe end up becoming a once a month or once every couple months visitor.

How to prevent that? The answers different for everyone based on their strong and weak points of their forum. A good starting point though would be to at least keep fresh topics pumping in and conduct some statistical research on the side to find out why it's slowing down, where people are going instead, why they are going there, and what you can do to get them back.

Just my thoughts on this topic anyways,

Eric Lyon

 

Based on what I have seen, phpBB is very actively used and developed. It's true that phpBB doesn't have an update very often, but there are people that are working on new versions of phpBB. If you are talking about forum software dying I have observed that at least phpBB and vBulletin have a large user base. If you are talking about forums, most forums that I am a member of are small, yet they are growing. My forum is small primarily because I do not promote it as much as I should; I am working to change that though.

 

Same here. I have been seeing a lot more activity and engagement on blog. The more time I spend with my forums, the better it gets everyday.

 

How much unique visitors do you get per month may i ask?

 

No much to be honest. I am getting 6,000-7,000 unique visitors a month.

 

Where did you get that forum software companies are losing customers? Maybe vBulletin is but IPB and XenForo are just picking up those lost customers.

I also found it odd that you picked those 3-4 forums in particular considering they are nowhere near the most popular forums on the internet.

 

I dont think forums are dying but they are certainly getting less traffic overall due to social media. Now instead of someone joining a forum to discuss sports, they can easily discuss sports on a facebook page which all they need to do is like the page.

 

Yeah, but FB conversations are a less meaningful, because the form of commenting is limited. You can only comment to one level. So you don't really get discussions, you get comments. Or, at most, comments to the comments and that is it.

Scott

 

I'm not a fan of FB myself. I have an account from the early days but never use it as I don't find many of the topics or posts meaningful. Forums on the other hand can be more personal and informative.

 

Forums will continue but social media will alter it how discussions form and how forums will work. People want easy access and information under their fingertips. Was it 10 years ago enough to have a forum and 4 to 5 years ago have a blog/news section 2 to 3 years ago people want a one stop website you come there and have news, blogs, images, forum everything you'll need for what people are interested in. What people want now is everything what was before but connected with social media, people these days think that everyone wants to know what they are talking about and what they are doing.

 

I belong to many Delphi forums and they all seem to be having the same issues. Where once, several years ago popular forums got hundreds of post per day they have dwindled to 1 or 2 post per day and many are just dead participation wise. Lots of people signing in but no one posting.

 

Isn't Delphi dead too ?

 

Pretty much, they have made some recent updates to the software with more user and admin options but only the die hard admins are excited.
One thing I didn't like about Delphi was if a user wanted extras even though they belonged to a group, they had to pay for it. I was never one for paid premier membership. I say give the members everything and if they appreciate the effort, make a donation.
Works for me

 

Where you referring to this Delphi? http://www.delphiforums.com/

Scott

 

Yup, is there any other?

 

I misunderstood, I was referring to Borland Delphi ......

 

Borland Delphi seems to be alive and well though a few years ago some thought it dead.

 

I launch several new forums every year. Some fail, some do OK, some thrive. It's a numbers game at this point.

 

I just wanted to make sure, because there are a number of "Delphis" in the world.

And looking at their system, it looks like Web 0.5 from the 90's. It reminds me of the old PHPNuke system of way back when. Maybe they are dying, because people don't like the very old fashioned UI?

Scott

 

I don't think that forums are dying, only that nowadays there are more forums like they were in the past.

However we can say the same about blogs. In the beginning there were just a few and today are tons of them. However this does not mean that bloggers give up and let their projects die, as forum owners either.

Although the forum software can contribute greatly to a forum's success, anyone can succeed running a forum even if they use a very primitive or plain vanilla software.

Success of forums relies in the community, and here is where admins need to make huge efforts setting interesting categories that attract people to join and share their thoughts, besides -- obviously -- promote, promote and promote to gain visibility in a crowded world.