Half of forums started are defunct

[Katrina]

I have been a member of Forum Promotion for a year now and since that time I've joined some of the member's forums. I maintain a spreadsheet of when I signed up, why I signed up (post exchange or just for fun) and my last visit.

Out of 46 forums that I registered on only 23 are currently active or still existing. I think 3 of those are new forums that were created in the past month or two.

I find this information interesting because a lot of those forums were brand new and for some reason the owners chose to not let it continue past the first year. Do those owners get impatient, lose hope, or had better expectations of how successful their place would be?

What do you think of this?

 

[meetdilip]

Forum is knowledge. If you invest money in a forum, you will expect the same in return. And when you don't, you will abandon the project to save hosting and domain costs and then sell off the license.

It is possible that some admins started forums to make money. And when it didn't come by, they let it go.

 

[Katrina]

Forum is knowledge. If you invest money in a forum, you will expect the same in return. And when you don't, you will abandon the project to save hosting and domain costs and then sell off the license.

It is possible that some admins started forums to make money. And when it didn't come by, they let it go.

Wouldn't it be better for them to make more money if they stayed open longer and actually built up the community past 25 posts or so? I mean not a lot of those had unique domain names that people would have bought.

 

[meetdilip]

What will you do if shares you hold are sinking ? Sell them off or keep it by your side ?

 

[Katrina]

What will you do if shares you hold are sinking ? Sell them off or keep it by your side ?

How many forum owners actually get investors for their start up? I'm curious because it seems that the forums I signed up on were done by individuals.

 

[Guardian]

Most people realize how hard it is to actually get a community going, and then even more so to maintain it.

I've also seen, and been one, who has started something and real life issues got in the way and took too much time and energy to allow one to continue committing to an online project that is already time/energy consuming in its own right.

 

[meetdilip]

How many forum owners actually get investors for their start up? I'm curious because it seems that the forums I signed up on were done by individuals.

What is your guess ?

 

[meetdilip]

eal life issues got in the way and took too much time and energy to allow one to continue committing to an online project that is already time/energy consuming in its own right.

This is 100 % true. We can't do anything about it.

 

[Jon]

I think people envision having a community of their own to guide and support, and then quickly realize the endless amount of effort and time it takes to build a community.

 

[Shannon Apple]

Personally, I've been hit by a LOT of pretty serious real-life stuff over the past year and a half and haven't been able to put as much into the forum as I used to. I am not the forum "owner" per say, but I've been the only active admin for a long time now. That meant that during the time that I was sick and other family members had stuff happening, I couldn't be online a whole lot. I think forums suffer when there isn't a visible admin presence. I am going to try to get the place more active again. It hasn't totally died, but it's nowhere as active as it was 18 months ago.

That's my reasoning at least.

But, @Jon is totally right. In my case, the forum was built as a new home for an old community and I was one of that community's volunteer admins. It was built as a necessity for our community, otherwise, we'd have nowhere to congregate anymore. Many people who are starting up forums from scratch, just like the idea of it. They want to be able to manage one themselves, and then they realise that it's just not as simple as they thought it would be. New members just don't come from nowhere and you have to have the content to keep them when they do. Those admins would honestly be better off just offering to help out at an existing small site and helping it grow. I've gotten just as much enjoyment out of doing that myself in the past. It's not as easy to start from scratch now as it was in 2002. =)

 

[Joshua Farrell]

Part of the reason why I had been hesitate over the years to volunteer to post on forums, was do to the fact that so many forum owners would start off a forum with good intentions, and then close the forum down before they even hit 6 months. A few forums I previously had joined, had been on and off closed to the public, making it even more harder to help them out.

Part the reason why I bought (and wanted to buy) themaPoster, was the fact that I could help a forum out, by having any new threads I wanted to make, scheduled for posting based on how many I want to write up, and how frequently I feel like it would need to run, in order to help a forum out.

 

[Shannon Apple]

Part of the reason why I had been hesitate over the years to volunteer to post on forums, was do to the fact that so many forum owners would start off a forum with good intentions, and then close the forum down before they even hit 6 months.

Hmm, I wonder if those VERY short-lived forums are that way because people thought they'd make some money, and then realised that it wasn't going to happen.

 

[overcast]

I think a lot comes down to how people don't want to create content and expect people to leave facebook and reddit and spend time on their forum. It all comes down to how regular you create content for the users.

 

[Deleted member 45570]

Main thing forums to go defunct is the mindset (i am one of the great example). Many start a project, do small advertising and post exchange and expect many to join the forum within 1 month and contribute. Expect traffic to come automatically and use ad service to earn, but it fails miserably.

 

[JoelR]

There's research from Gartner on enterprise communities that up to 70% of all communities eventually become defunct.

Forums are becoming increasingly commoditized. On Invision, you can get a fully functioning forum started in less than 10 minutes on their cloud.

What you don't get, however, is purpose, or mission, or content, or how you'ree going to solve a problem for members, or emotional rapport with your audience. This is the hard, challenging, and strategic work that communities need to focus on. The communities that focus relentlessly on that core purpose will not only survive, but thrive.

 

[KnownSyntax]

I honestly believe that it's the issue with those who start them up, and can't seem to get enough traffic to keep them around. Then when it comes time to renew everything (which is always more than the first year), it doesn't appear worth it overall to do so and they end up letting things go, sell it off, or just honestly forget and it disappears.

 

[Deleted member 4320]

A lot of forums tend to be the same. You need a USP. A successful forum doesn’t need to be super active, it only needs 2 or 3 active users.

I think what causes them to fail is people want active forums with thousands of users and millions of posts.

 

[Darth-Apple]

Well, to be honest, sometimes they just fail. It took the third attempt for me to finally have one that stuck. The first two failed within about six months.

It's like starting a business. You just have to try, and try, and try, and one day you'll have one that sticks. We're running on seven years, and while we are a small community with a relatively slower-paced vibe, we are still active and around (and we like it that way. 😛)

Honestly, I always say kudos to those who didn't succeed the first time, got up, and tried again. It takes a lot to grunt through that. It hits a little hard when it fails. When you can get back up and try again, it shows a lot for your dedication to it. That level of dedication is a part of what it takes to be successful, so if you can push yourself to get back up and try again, half the battle is already won there.

That being said, the barrier for entry is pretty low on forums nowadays. I would say that 80-90% of the forums made probably don't make it, but of the ones that don't the majority of them only had 50 posts and 6 members. I don't think those particularly count... 🙂

 

[SoRonerly]

Im not surprised, I would say easily 99% of forums started all end pretty quickly. It would be a high % that close within the first 12 months when their hosting normally runs out.

Go look on say xenforo.com in the showcase topic and start from the 1st page, it would be almost impossible to find any site in the first few pages that is still up and running nowdays...

I wonder what the average age for a forum would be at the moment? My guess would be close to 3 months.

Most fail in 3-12 months like 95%
Another 3% fail 12-24 months
The other 1% hang on a bit longer then fail
The last 1% probably actually make a successful forum.. (depending on what your version of success is)

Just guessing these numbers... btw

 

[Deleted member 29780]

I agree with you! But Code Forum is still purrring 🙂