I think it is possible that some may have dropped off but I think they are the fringe people. Twitter and Facebook are OK but a bit boring.
More people are using the internet now due to twitter and facebook. People join forums there interested in. But i have an eery feeling the facebook will launch a forum of some kind in the future.
I think on facebook there are people who are not "webmasters" they just want to meat new friends and see what their friends are doing. But on Twitter there are more webmasters who want to promote their sites to their followers. And on forums there are purely webmasters who want to discuss topics with other webmasters. You see everything has its own area of interest?
You do know there are a lot of non-webmaster forums? Travel/fashion/weight loss/etc. The list goes on... forums are here to stay.
People might become less active in forum because of facebook and twitter but at the same time more people might join forums because of FB and twitter too. So, I think they are even.
It's like when people said books wouldn't sell anymore because of the internet. Yet books sell better now than before the internet. What FB does is bring more people to the web for socializing. Forums have always been a great way for people in niche genres to socialize and that will remain so.
Perfect for niche communities and you can focus on one topic, not what your dog peed on today at the park.
No. I use a few niche forums and FB doesn't have the same sense of community or in-depth knowledge. The FB/Twitter connect seems to be mostly use for merging profiles/status updates and a simple method of registering.
Totally agree, while some forums might see a decline due to social networks popularity I still find niche forums far more valuable with subjects like seo, programming and IM as I have few friends on facebook etc with these interests and gain a wealth of knowledge from forum communities.