Too Late for Forums?

[Forces of Steel]

When it comes to starting a forum these days, you're faced with even tougher competition from social media and even other forums relevant to your theme. Convincing your community to spread the word is likely to fall on deaf ears. Even to advertise on another forum puts you at risk of getting disciplined by the moderators, out of fear of driving away traffic.

Having run my forum since 2012, the fact that social media has such an impact on our niche doesn't convince prospective members to go ahead with the registration process. I'd like to say that we've really come a long way, but members -- even our long-time ones -- are easily bored. I've tried to find new ways to feature interactive content, but not even that has really helped.

Had we started back in 2002 or before, we would've had a massive following. I just don't think that most forums have a chance anymore. Social media is here to stay, and you either "humanize" your Web sites or you face the consequences. Being someone who hates unnecessary change, I'm not sacrificing our integrity to appeal to today's dumb generation who are addicted to their smartphones.

Also, just in case anyone tries pointing out that forums are where discussions happen, I've already seen in-depth discussions taking place in Bookface groups and on SJWeddit.

 

[Geoffrey]

I think forums still have a place for people, though they're certainly not as popular as they once were (before social media took a booming leap forward).

Forums offer more than discussion (as you said), they offer organized discussion and that, for me, is what I enjoy about them. I can tweet and use hashtags, but hashtags are so widely used that you get a bunch of tweets on a topic that may have little connection and sometimes you see topics sharing a hashtag with another topic. I can use a Facebook group which is probably the next best thing to a forum, but that doesn't organized discussions, it just displays things in a linear format with the option of having one pinned status at the top.

That, to me, is where forums rise above social media.

 

[Thomasss]

I agree with most of what Geoffrey has said, social media might offer some things to members but I don't really think it's the reason people get bored. Usually social media is just to hang out with friends and what not, forums is where you have discussions about things, and like Geoffrey said, Facebook groups offer these odd linear formats, which bugs the heck out of me. It's not really a conversation, nor is it organized.

Personally forums have always been popping around, more and more people are creating forums, which in turn grows the competition, which usually affects many forums of the same niche. There's people who prefer social media and then there's those who prefer forums.

I don't think it's too late for forums, I think they are just catching on.

 

[THF_Martin]

I think forums have a very good place for people still, however what we really need is the actual software we use to change with the times. The people who use social networks and forums or whatever for communication are getting lazier and lazier so the forum software itself needs to adapt to the changing market in order to stay competitive. Sadly, whilst we have seen social networks adapt a lot forum software has changed very little since it was invented.