Are forums dead?

Facebook Groups and G+ communities are killing forums.
I own 3 forums. I have to say, blogs are ranking higher because of page load time, more social integration etc.

 

I still believe there is a userbase out there for forums and a demand. You just need to be looking in the right places.

 

I honestly think your wasting your time unless you have a niche forum. And even then its doubtful that its going to go anywhere. Just look at all of the established forums out there. I can remember some of them having 1,200+ members on at once and now their dead. People use to go to forums for information and engage in conversation.. And now you can almost always find what your looking for on a blog post. Unless you have good money to throw away, I would say stay away from forums.

Greg

 

I would say forums are still alive. As far as creating more forums, I'm not so sure about that. Yesterday, I made the decision to spend $30 on a domain and a nice flat theme, and I created my own forums site. I'm hoping I can grow it to be popular but I'm not really sure how. The one thing that I think sets my forums apart from the others is it works lightning fast on any mobile device, and the graphics are stunning both on desktop and mobile. It's more an experiment I guess. If no one is into it, I only lost $30.

 

I'd say my forums work good on mobile as far as usability goes. You can check it out if you like.

 

After reading all of the posts in this thread it got me to think about why I like forums.

1) Great Community
2) Threads/Posts are like a repostitory
3) Very easy to find stuff see #2
4) Excellant crowd control

For me Facebook/Twitter/Google+ doesnt cut it. It's probably great for a lot of others and more power to them. It's just not for me. Except for my family & close friends in FB that's it for me. My internet friends are in forums that I frequent. That is where I value my time and comments.

My points 2 & 3 (you can consider them the same). There are posts that I have made on FB and I have yet to find them for reference purposes. That sucks. Forums (imho) are best for this.

Crowd control. I am a tolerent person and pretty even keel. But when someone flames me about help that I give someone else... I like the fact that I can remove them totally (at lease temporarily until they create another account). Social networks are much harder to do this simply because they are all about the big fish bowl and when they scream ... people will look.

Lastly, I can attest to the fact that you can earn money on a forum and not own it as I am an expert on a forum for a niche development platform. I have been a Mod there for over 3 years now so I do enjoy the benefits.

However, I do see the other side as well. For me, I have been a member here a long time BUT I know I have not been as faithful in participation so hopefully I can keep my current streak up.

Definitely an interesting topic.

Buddy

 

Have you heard about Discourse, they are building new type of forum software that is up to date with current web trends. I believe if forums exist in the future, they will have to be closer to Discourse concept then to classic forums.
From Discourse homepage:
- Replace pagination with automatic loading on scrolling down.
- Notifications when @mentioned
- Replay on topic and comment on replay
- Smartphones and tablet friendly
- Link automatically expand
- Replay with new linked topic
- Real time updates

 

Discourse, haven't heard of it and one way it looks great, another way it sucks. It's more of an algorithm, but I believe that's not the trick that will help succeed.

In my opinion the forums that could still make it are the private, paid ones. Of course it depends on the niche too, but people do pay for value and that's what you can find on private forums (sometimes on public forums). I haven't found any good secret information on social networks up to now.

Interesting topic indeed.

 

I also found nodebb, forum software built with node.js and redis database, load speed is impressive. I think it is more suitable for my current project than discourse. You can try it on nodebb community. Anyway, development of new forum software must be a sign of market demand and that there is a future for web forums.

@sarahk
We could not call it a forum software if changes were more radical. Yes, replay=reply, coming from phonetic alphabet(serbian), when I hear a sound I have to write it down

 

They are not dead, but a forum requires a lot of effort, time, funds and patience before it succeed.

 

As a big time automotive fan that likes to modify my cars and trucks I have always found forums as a wealth of knowledge. They are a database of how tos, photos of modifications, info on pricing, etc. No other source has been able to replace that for me. FB I can ask friends but of my friends maybe 1 or 2 is looking at buying the car I want to buy. G+ is a ghost town unless your looking for tech related stuff.

I think the key with forums today is that they need to be more then just a forum. IPB and VB both offer a suite of addons that allow you to create areas for more user generated content. For example IPB now has the standard forums, plus allows users to have dedicated blogs, plus has a content add on so you can create databases with custom fields of stuff that users can fill. The key is building content that there is a NEED for. If people are looking for a resource and you build that resource I think you will find success, but if your just copying someone else's site to hope to pull some traffic away from it I think your not going to do too well.

I'm looking at starting a niche site in a category that I found has zero forums, a handful of industry magazines, and one successful classifieds site. Its my goal to build the forum but also add on news/blog, classifieds, link directory, vendor reviews, product reviews, theft database, mobile friendly, separate android and iphone apps, etc so its a destination site.

 

What makes a forum dead -- spammers.
Look at those forums that are well moderated, their still an active online community, perfect if you are looking for valuable references.
Establishing a forum is not an easy job, it takes a lot of time and effort. But if a forum can adapt to changes on the internet and are able to keep up then I don't think it will be dead.

 

I would imagine that Facebook/Twitter/etc will be dead long before forums. Forums were the original "social media" (evolution off newsgroups/BBS), and will long outlive the fads of the day. Yes, FB is a fad as far as I'm concerned, as is Twitter and Pinterest. Just look at Myspace or Friendster to see what happens to "social media" sites in time.

 

I use Facebook groups and pages to draw traffic to my forums.

 

I love forums & reddit.

I visit facebook when I remember and twitter once in a blue.

 

I opened back a forum I owned 3 years ago 6 moth ago, hope to kick it off after 6 month as it went 6 month since been online and all I`m getting is junk spam.
Forum need good hosting plan to handle the many http requests to be as fast.
You need to start doing how to posts, while the forum still underground as not many know how to deal with forum interface.

 

As long as you have a niche, passion, knowledge and can get people posting in initial stage(maybe paid) with good content for the intended market/niche you can start all the forums you want. Its not easy and you know it. People are using more phones than PC, but when a forum is good (for whatever reason) People will visit it with PC, phones, Tablets or whatever they got. Personally, I like more pc to hang out at forums. People use more phones than pc because they have the phone all day, but most forum users are not all day, and you don't necessarily need your users all day in the forum.

Forums and social networks are similar in few things, but they have clearly different purposes. Social networks are all in one connecting with people and sharing a quick piece of data, but at the end, the real data are in blogs and forums.(also blogs and forums are similar but clearly defined purposes)

Forums are the heart of alike minded people. And none of the newest platforms displays the use of forums. Forums has content and is a community, something that with time you get a sense of "my hang out place" and you create really good relationships over time.

Social Networks is like a run run run environment, where everything happens too fast and hard to find old references, forums are the contrary.

Looks like I love forums, can you notice it? lol...