Social Media Ruins The Forum

It is disappointing that the social media, the likes of Facebook and Twitter have ruined forums in an unimaginable way. I can remember a few years ago, the forum was where everyone can interact with others, share information or knowledge with others and as well to network based on whatever the forums that they look for (webmaster, friends, dating, religious, web developer, web designer etc.). I am watching many of good forums starting to leave a note saying that they have decided to shut down due to low traffic and that because of that reason it's becoming more harder for them to keep it maintained especially when it comes to the costs against that much of traffic or in some case "waste" traffic (meaning inactive members). I have sat back, thinking that it's sad that it's happening if not already happened and the forums that I look for whether it be blogging related, marketing related or whatever else that I have an interest in because it is getting to the point where there is barely any forum available now. If you look for bloggers forum, you will see most of the best or top bloggers forum has already been shut down and as well several domains or webmasters forum has been also shut down. Sometimes I am even surprised that Digital Point forums are still going, I must tip my hat for the persistence that the owner of this site has.

What's your thought on that the fact many popular forums are shutting down and that the forums are starting to be the things of the past?

P.S. For those who remember me, I hope all is well!

 

As the forum market continues to shrink, DP will become increasingly viable and valuable. Disfranchised forum members will all eventually end up here. The only direction for DP is upwards.

 

That is actually clever thinking in the marketing perspective. Let others to dry out, keep this running as long as it can and in the end it would reap all rewards of traffic. But not just that, a lot of people are also leaving the forums in general and use Facebook's groups more than ever.

 

I believe that focused discussion groups will continue to be necessary and valued. What they look like in a few years remains to be seen. I really preferred the email list forums where you would receive either real time emails or a daily digest of posts to a forum that you could reply to or not. It was much more targeted and easier than even DP, but they went the way of the dinosaur because, I suspect, everyone got inundated with spam emails and their email inbox was a problem, not a solution any more. @Spoiltdiva does have a very valid point that DP sticking around will benefit from the shuttering of other forums.

 

There's also a good few people that have moved over to using "Question & Answer" type sites, such as Stackoverflow. In many forums you get a good few new members who once they've gotten help with their problem are never seen again

 

Yes, the likes of Quora and Reddit is on the rise. They pretty much what started making the forums less essential or needed but the forums sails through the rough seas and then Facebook and Twitter pretty much put the nails on the coffin of forums so it's becoming obsolete.

 

The forums that have larger members base should continue fine, although some of them will be inactive and some of them will become loyal ones. Group e-mail is still the bomb, but e-mail is pretty much a thing of the past too, worse than forums is because I am seeing a lot of people would say "email me" and when I did they would tell me that they haven't gotten any e-mails from me so I had e-mailed them once again but they kept saying that they never got them so eventually I asked them to e-mail me to see if it was on my end or their end that the e-mail wouldn't get through - only to find out that when they say "e-mail" they really mean Facebook messaging. I was like, really?

 

It's funny, because in the B2B world, email is the killer app. Most transactions between businesses occur via email, in my experience. It has usurped the phone as the primary means of communication and I think that it is for a couple of reasons. First, a long email thread contains the entire business discussion (many times spanning months of communications) and, therefore, any participant can familiarize themselves with past details or issues, simply by scrolling down and refreshing memory. The second reason is because, unlike with a phone call, participants can spend as much time as they would like or need to respond to a question or request or whatever the conversation requires. Business users do not use social media messaging or anything like that for such communications.

 

Actually, business do use social media messaging for business including transactions. Facebook business pages now (recent added feature by FB) can sell their products directly from Facebook and make money directly from Facebook using the "Facebook Money" via the messaging system. They are starting to sway from e-mail to Facebook doing just that. In fact, I had a friend who been consulted to not do business through a website (was told that after I offered to build a business website for him) because people don't even use or waste their time visiting a website to do the business and that it would be the best for him to do business via Facebook using their scheduling system along with their money system.

 

I am thinking that you are mostly referring to a B2C business (i.e., a business selling to consumers. Toothpaste, e.g.)? I understand that FB has been found to be productive in certain B2C plays. But, I am not aware of B2B businesses (i.e, a business selling to other businesses. Conveyor Belts, e.g.) being on social media for sales and that is why I opined that in the B2B world that I have experienced over the past couple of decades, email is the killer app. Have not ever been to FB for business, in fact.

 

In some parts I was, but I also mean that you can sell items straight off your Facebook page and have customers pay for whatever it is that they want to purchase using Facebook's payment processing system instead of having customers to go to their ecommerce website in order to shop for some items and order them then pay for them via some payment processing systems whether it be PayPal, Stripe etc.

In other words, Facebook is becoming the go-to for everything basically. This is why it's doing more than harm to the forums, not just forums but also blogs and any of other social networking websites like B2B.

 

I am Amazed that at least someone is there who focused on this.

 

Companies like Facebook or Twitter and others has paid millions of dollars to news agencies and spread the word about their websites. Forums died because they lost Google SERP rankings mainly.

 

We are lucky, we've had the privilege of being part of online forums. For the Snapchat and Instagram generation forums are a dinosaur. Forums will never die out, though. Look at Reddit, Craigslist's forums, Stackoverflow (which some refer to as forum), Quora and so on. They are quite alive and well. Reddit averages something like 1.5+ billion visits / month.

 

Now i wonder. Even if you say social media has managed to ruin the forum, why are we all still here posting then if everything was ruined even if i know what you are saying should we not have left the forum a long time ago then? =)

 

I agree, it's disappointing that forums have become less and less popular but there is a flip side to consider too.

As someone else mention above, while forums have decreased in popularity, it also means less competition for the truly great forums as so many forums have shut down over the years and fewer new forums are springing up.

I actually think the likes of Reddit did more harm than good to forums as opposed to FaceBook and Twitter.

I also think that as we lead head into the future and people become more privacy conscious and focused, we'll start to see forums become popular once again.

I still think that forums still serve a purpose but for the more generalised forums, for example, Batman Fans, it's probably better and more ideal to have a FaceBook group or Page and congregate on there. When privacy is more needed or more complex or very niche topics are needed to be discussed then forums still serve a great purpose.

 

It is not because of the social media, it is because of the people on these forums.
If you find that some frustrated lady is stalking you everywhere on DP, despite the fact that you have added that b**ch and her friend on 'Ignored' list.
On social media, you can protect yourself from such people.
Just after reading your post, I realized that I should be more on SM and not here.
But I would say, most of the people are really good here. I have been working with a client for a year now, and I found this job, here.