The Discussion Forum Universe is Dying, I know Why...

[Sal Collaziano]

I'm not sure if Facebook "desktop" has worked like this for a long time - but I know it's new to mobile... Look at the image I attached. They're getting very good at "conversations". This is more bad news for forums...

Look a the way responses are positioned... There's no need to "quote" and no need to wait until you get to page 6 to see what somebody's response was to a message. When conversations go in similar but different directions (not completely off topic) - this is the best way to handle the presentation. If ten people reply to THIS message - why would you want to read through the rest of the discussion and come back to this thought with several replies found on various pages. And even worse - sometimes people don't "quote" the response! Now you need to go back and find the post they replied to. Good luck and enjoy THAT process...

Forums need to evolve. And forums definitely need an out of the box solution to make it stupidly easy to read and post on small screens...

 

[mysiteguy]

I'm not sure if Facebook "desktop" has worked like this for a long time - but I know it's new to mobile... Look at the image I attached. They're getting very good at "conversations". This is more bad news for forums...

Look a the way responses are positioned... There's no need to "quote" and no need to wait until you get to page 6 to see what somebody's response was to a message. When conversations go in similar but different directions (not completely off topic) - this is the best way to handle the presentation. If ten people reply to THIS message - why would you want to read through the rest of the discussion and come back to this thought with several replies found on various pages. And even worse - sometimes people don't "quote" the response! Now you need to go back and find the post they replied to. Good luck and enjoy THAT process...

Threaded style discussions have been around forums since the mid-90s and before then in the 1980s on the BBS systems. That's not innovative on Facebook's part at all. Threaded works well for short discussions, they start to make it harder to follow what's going on when you go from a couple dozen posts to much longer discussion.

 

[Sal Collaziano]

Threaded style discussions have been around forums since the mid-90s and before then in the 1980s on the BBS systems. That's not innovative on Facebook's part at all. Threaded works well for short discussions, they start to make it harder to follow what's going on when you go from a couple dozen posts to much longer discussion.

I used to run those BBSes back in the 80s and maybe it's been too long but I don't remember them being so easily to follow as the Facebook version today...

 

[GhettoChild]

I'm not sure if Facebook "desktop" has worked like this for a long time - but I know it's new to mobile... Look at the image I attached. They're getting very good at "conversations". This is more bad news for forums...

Look a the way responses are positioned... There's no need to "quote" and no need to wait until you get to page 6 to see what somebody's response was to a message. When conversations go in similar but different directions (not completely off topic) - this is the best way to handle the presentation. If ten people reply to THIS message - why would you want to read through the rest of the discussion and come back to this thought with several replies found on various pages. And even worse - sometimes people don't "quote" the response! Now you need to go back and find the post they replied to. Good luck and enjoy THAT process...

Forums need to evolve. And forums definitely need an out of the box solution to make it stupidly easy to read and post on small screens...

Would be relatively easy for a developer to create an add-on to duplicate this style of reply system for most forum apps?

I can't see this as something that can't be duplicated with the help of a talented developer.

 

[luiss]

Hi, i've been reading this thread using my limited english and i agree with what is been said.


Years ago it was not easy to become a content creator and to setup a website you need to have some kind of skills, now is easy. Social networks (facebook, google+, etc..) users creates contents (photos, status, etc...) for friends and themselves, seems that nobody cares to interact with unknown users. Social network's main content are: funny, stupid and controversial, it is rare to find true quality information, at least for me.
Maybe having some sort of video tutorials in showing how to do things around forums features will help. I don't think it has to do so much about age (look at broarmy.net).
Look at mustang 1995 and the most recent one, the most recent one looks more like to old timer mustang, old things with a twist. As everybody of most of you said: Forums software need to evolve, being loyal to it's nature but with a twist.

 

[s.molinari]

being loyal to it's nature but with a twist.

Hehehe...I like that!

Scott

 

[The Sandman]

Forums need to evolve. And forums definitely need an out of the box solution to make it stupidly easy to read and post on small screens...

You'd think they'd start building this into the new releases....

 

[dethfire]

Ask yourself:
Why are niche icons (famous people) doing AMA on Reddit instead of joining niche forums?
Why does StackExchange outrank niche forums on relevant questions?
Why do blogs and wikipedia outrank niche forums on relevant articles?
Why will the king of a niche in one language rarely be king of the same niche in another language?

Why does forum software fail in all these area's?

Google does not trust forum content (somewhat for good reason) which is why it has was devauled in a secret UGC penalty 4 years ago. Also note that Reddit and SE are backed by millions of dollars. Does the average forum have that leverage and resource?

I must admit my site which is best of breed for its topic has seen it's traffic decline by over 60% over the past 5 years.

 

[mysiteguy]

Google sends more people to forums now then it did four years ago. More people visit forums than ever before, the percentage of Internet users who visit forums nearly doubled between 2012 and 2015. People can cry all they want about declines, but the truth is while some individual forums complain about declines, in aggregate forums have grown. This is the result of maturity and competition in the market. The sheer number of forums has exploded in the past 10 years, and it really doesn't matter if you think you're best of breed --- this does not mean it hits all the points for the best ranking especially when a larger number of niches chips away at traffic.

Meanwhile the forums which are growing typically stay silent on the matter and smile on the way to the bank.

 

[Alpha1]

Between 2011 and 2016 my traffic quadrupled from 1 million uniques per month to 4 million. I'm not seeing the decline.

 

[LeadCrow]

Google sends more people to forums now then it did four years ago.

Does it really? It was my impression forums just have a stronger user retention than most site types except news outfits, and the difference from a couple years back comes from retention of formerly desktop users across mobiles (since users on the go can stay connected and active on their smart devices, although social networks would be naturally more favoured on that medium).

 

[mysiteguy]

Does it really? It was my impression forums just have a stronger user retention than most site types except news outfits, and the difference from a couple years back comes from retention of formerly desktop users across mobiles (since users on the go can stay connected and active on their smart devices, although social networks would be naturally more favoured on that medium).

In the USA, the percentage of people who used forums was 31% in 2012. By 2015 that number had jumped to 51%. I can't point to the citation as is a paid in depth research paper into the matter --- but the numbers back it up, forums are bigger than ever. The number of forums has grown, and hence the number of people who lose in the market, and the number of people complaining.

I haven't seen the levels of growth Alpha1 has with his forum, but I have seen all of my forums grow over the same period. Only one took a hit, 3 years ago due to something unrelated, but it regrew the loss.

I have been looking into this topic for quite some time, concerned because of all the sky is falling discussion over the past several years, and worried it would hit me. Instead I see growth and in that period of time the more I look into the matter the more I find my gut feeling is correct: the market is maturing.

In any market even big players change positions over the years. This doesn't always mean their market is going away. At one point A&P was the largest grocer in the world. Now they are a nobody in the grocery business. KMart and Sears were top dogs in retail department stores. Now they are shells of their former selves and Walmart is on top. Anyone remember RC Cola? When the words "Personal Computer" were synonymous with IBM? What about Netscape or Alta Vista?

Most businesses fail... so do most forums.

 

[dethfire]

In the USA, the percentage of people who used forums was 31% in 2012. By 2015 that number had jumped to 51%. I can't point to the citation as is a paid in depth research paper into the matter --- but the numbers back it up, forums are bigger than ever.

Then respectfully it means nothing here if we can't examine the research. Just because you paid for it doesn't mean it was done correctly. I don't know you or this research.

In any market even big players change positions over the years. This doesn't always mean their market is going away. At one point A&P was the largest grocer in the world. Now they are a nobody in the grocery business. KMart and Sears were top dogs in retail department stores. Now they are shells of their former selves and Walmart is on top. Anyone remember RC Cola? When the words "Personal Computer" were synonymous with IBM? What about Netscape or Alta Vista?

Yeah and this discussion is a bit about how Social Media and forum alternatives are winning out which is actually what you're saying here. This is the concern. That forums are becoming Netscape.

 

[mysiteguy]

Then respectfully it means nothing here if we can't examine the research. Just because you paid for it doesn't mean it was done correctly.

I didn't pay to have the research done. A large company commissioned the work, and in order to get access to a copy you have to fork out $300.

I don't know you or this research.

Likewise I don't know you or your research backing up your claims. Largest doesn't mean best, nor does best of breed mean growing niche.

Yeah and this discussion is a bit about how Social Media and forum alternatives are winning out which is actually what you're saying here. This is the concern. That forums are becoming Netscape.

No, that is not what I am saying.

What I am saying is it's the losers in the forum universe who complain, it's only natural. While it's only natural you won't hear as much from the winners. Not much different than the Adsense complainers I've heard on WMW for 10 years complaining how Adsense sucks, is going down the tubes, there's no money to be made... meanwhile Adsense continues to grow, people are making big money in it, and the crybabies eventually drop out because they either can't or don't do something to address the short comings they have in the market.

 

[Anton Chigurh]

What i said earlier about this mostly being a generational thing? I got a real-live verification of that the other day.

A young (early 20s) friend who is now a TV sports reporter in a major market was starting a sports website and wanted reporters. She wanted to advertise on one of my sports-related sites, which is a vBulletin board. I was like sure, start a thread on it and I'll stick the thread for you. Nothing happened.

The next day I had a PM from her in facebook, saying "How can i post anything to your site?

She had successfully registered, but that was as far as she could go. She had never seen a message board before, in her life. And had no idea how to proceed.

 

[LeadCrow]

In the USA, the percentage of people who used forums was 31% in 2012

This is what gets me. A lot of the studies and marketshare reports only seem to cover the US and suggest their findings are universal (like those rankings of the most popular sites/social networks 'worldwide' - meaning in the US. What's the chance sites in chinese would be listed among the top 1000 there?).

 

[mysiteguy]

What i said earlier about this mostly being a generational thing? I got a real-live verification of that the other day.

I saw the same kind of issues 10 and 20 years ago, new advertisers or potential advertisers needing help understanding what a forum is and how to use it. Thankfully it's a little bit easier these days, especially if you streamline logins and allow social network account logins. There has always been a segment of the online world who haven't experienced message boards.

There are some things I've been working with on my sites, slowly so I can A/B test them, which addresses the issue of unfamiliarity. For instance I recently rolled out changes to wording on one of my forums, changing the word "Thread" to "Topic". So instead of "Post New Thread" and "Reply To Thread" you'll see "Post New Topic" and "Reply To Topic". It helps, because the wording doesn't assume the user is familiar with forum nomenclature. Plus I'm experimenting now with additional placements of the new topic and reply buttons, I don't have data on that yet.

This is what gets me. A lot of the studies and marketshare reports only seem to cover the US and suggest their findings are universal (like those rankings of the most popular sites/social networks 'worldwide' - meaning in the US. What's the chance sites in chinese would be listed among the top 1000 there?).

That's why I mentioned USA growth, to give an example of the growth out there. If I run across other studies I'll publish them, but my primary concern is my audience.

But since you mentioned it, and it's one area I've looked at (and decided against since the cultural gap is too wide):

China has some flat out massive discussion forums. Mop.com, for instance, has 28 million users. Tianya, even larger, is a BBS/forum, blog and photo service all in one, and is the 60th largest site in the world. Forums are so popular and growing there that even companies like Baidu have gotten in the forum market.

 

[pawanrockz]

With discussions, it is purchase/get the product, get web space or a server, transfer the product, set up the database, introduce the product and set it up. Setting up a gathering makes more strides, furthermore takes cash and additional time and even some additional information/learning. That is basically too high of an obstacle to contend. Beginning up a group should be join, setup the group - Done!

 

[Maxxamillion]

I was having a private chat with Sandman, on the subject, and thought it might be productive to bring the core idea out for public scrutiny.

First, I haven't been very active here lately, I used to be quite a bit. My forum experience is mostly related to our one very big site, http://www.abovetopsecret.com. We have more than 20 million posts on more than 1 million topics that span over 4 million pages as indexed by Google. There's a massive list of headaches associated with managing a discussion community of that size, many of which are technology related.

We are seeing a gradual drop in overall traffic from new users. It's not yet alarming because we still get good spikes from hot issues in the news, and social media. However, I've been seeing lots of formerly decent boards fade away, if not disappear entirely. I'm sure everyone here has noticed the same, and is concerning.

I know why

The primary issue is that the UX (user experience) of discussion forum software has not kept pace with the rapid evolution of the broader user experience expectations of the modern digital user. For the most part, every major forum software provider is still relying on the core UX and information architecture first conceived in the 1990's. From a user experience perspective, discovering new and interesting content takes an effort, and this is the problem.

Sure, there have been some improvements in the front-end design, but it's just polishing the turd.

When you compare the overall user experience of popular digital products (especially mobile) like Uber, Facebook, Instagram, Pandora, Evernote, Twitter, Trello, and FitBit, discussion forum software is insanely confusing and complicated by comparison. This makes adoption by contemporary digital users highly unlikely.

To me, this seems obvious. And we've simplified our UX over the years to keep step as much as possible. So why haven't those with an invested interest (forum software vendors) kept pace with modern UX sensibilities? This is the problem. And anyone using their software is suffering from it.

I don't believe this is the case specifically, facebook and twitter etc does not offer what a forum does. Forums offer huge about of in depth information where as these other social media outlets provide quick snapshots. When people google search im pretty sure hardly any specific info on topics shows up linking to FB or twitter they all link to other sites, forums or blogs. I just think that the social media platform is growing and that FB, twitter etc are just new user experiences along side forums. We just got to keep our users engaged with new info and keep on the grind.

 

[Apple]

I think, to be honest, that it has a lot to do with already established platforms and less to do with UX. When you think about it, back in the days when some of us ran, or helped to run some pretty big successful forums (and that's what we're thinking of here, right) the internet was younger. It was more or less a nerds paradise where people communicated via forums and IRC chatrooms. People who weren't outwardly nerdy didn't readily admit to being a member of an online forum. Hell, even being a gamer was nerdy.

Along comes social networking; things like MySpace and Bebo, and later Facebook. Everyone who is anyone wants to be part of it. Suddenly, being online is no longer nerdy, but super cool. In fact, if you're not into social media, there's something wrong with you. It definitely created a whole different generation of internet users. People are only interested in comments and quick fire responses. A lot of them are not interested in getting involved in forums where they actually have to partake in discussions.

I wish we had thought of Facebook lol. Facebook actually has a REALLY terrible layout for usergroups though. Forums are much better structured for discussions. It's not the platform/UX that's the issue imo. I really think it's like some people said here. People want to hang out with their families and friends and share stupid stuff, have a laugh. They're not interested in getting into arguments on topics with strangers.

Having said all that, I can see social networking dying away in favour of something else. Maybe it'll be a time for forums again, but a new and improved version. I know that friends of mine, in around the 30 mark have actually dropped off FB, not because of their jobs, but because they felt like Facebook was a massive invasion of privacy. Facebook is forever prompting us to give away more and more information about ourselves. Every couple of months, someone else drops off the radar. So, I guess, time will tell.