Is TAZ now (or soon to be owned) by VerticalScope?

[\o/]

Who of you listens to crooners from 30s? Anyone?

I do. Sometimes.

You get millions of clicks and impressions on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter. You get the best exposure you can get on these platforms.

You can’t discuss on on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

You get millions of clicks and impressions on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter. You get the best exposure you can get on these platforms.

You're right on that. I had as forum once that I finally got 100,000 posts on and more 10,000 members. It took me buying out the competition and about 5-years of really hard work. If I hadn't bought out and merged the competition and become the main competition, I'd still of been the little guy. I won't say how much I spend on the buyout but it was over $1,000.

Now my Facebook group (my main one) is nearing 20,000-members and it's going to be 5-years old this year. No money spent at all to get it there.

I also run several other groups that have several thousand members on each.

Facebook even invited me to a private "big groups" admin group which I rarely use because I'm spending time on my groups lol and FB even called me (through a contractor) and got me on the local news to promote my group. It helped a little but my marketing tactics are a lot better, IMO.

Social has definitely beat forums...

But...

I think forum owners, software developers and dedicated forum users, fan boys fan girls of forum communities need to all unite and create a system where everyone helps each other out and promotes forums, all forums, large...small...direct competition...all of them. A unified robust system in place where we are supporting one and another would help. But it would definitely require unity and can we do that? That is the questions? Can xenForo developers work with vBulletin developers? SMF with MyBB? GamingForum1 with GamingForum2? If we could all work together to create a system, we could probably get noticed more.

We need a forum union

 

[Pete]

Do the "younglings" also cherish that culture or not. THAT makes the difference, THAT tells if something is dead or not.

Well, that's why I had people aged 16-20 coming to my last forum (as well as people in the mid-late 30s coming)... to suggest that forums are dead is just as unhelpful as suggesting they are alive.

Forums - like everything else - do not exist in a vacuum, and to pretend otherwise is naive at best. But what forums are, what they can be - is evolving too. The places I inhabit are full of people in their 20s making new forums. New ones announced every week. Most disappear in a few months, but that's good in a way, because it means people are trying and iterating and seeing what still works and what doesn't. But also the nature of those spaces is inherently somewhat transient. They're not all there to exist long term (though obviously that is the hope), they're there for a group of people to collaborate and discuss, in ways that (even now) Facebook/Twitter/YouTube/etc etc do not and cannot facilitate.

The key thing is that it's not 'forum culture' these people cherish, but what forums can offer to an audience - and what 'the forum experience' can be. There are some types of back-and-forth that *simply do not work* on other mediums. And that's OK. That's allowed. Let the other mediums thrive on the styles of back and forth that they're good at. Let forums thrive on what *they're* good at.

Though I will also note very firmly that my experience does not reflect the forum scene as a whole. My corner of the world behaves very very differently with use cases and requirements and behaviours that simply do not exist and would be 'why would you want *that*?' for regular forums.

But let me ask this: in an era where video content is produced at a terrifying rate, why do people still write books? Do people even read books any more? Books are dead. (Then again I remember the line 'print is dead' in a popular 1984 movie, so...) Or maybe books aren't dead, and books just evolved like everything else.

Last point: we don't *know* why The Sandman transferred TAZ. Maybe there were personal reasons for it. It's not always 'because a thing is dying' that someone moves on.

 

[\o/]

Now my Facebook group (my main one) is nearing 20,000-members and it's going to be 5-years old this year. No money spent at all to get it there.

You're basically selling data to Facebook. Fair deal for them.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

You're basically selling data to Facebook. Fair deal for them.

Oh I'm sure, I am.

I mean that is wide open in the public now yet people are not abandoning Facebook. I don't because I've built my brand on it. The information on me they are getting is fine but I'm different than the rest because I know marketing tactics and tricks and I don't fall for their tactics though I do find them interesting to see.

 

[\o/]

I mean that is wide open in the public now yet people are not abandoning Facebook.

Most of my friends have abandoned most Facebook services, including WhatsApp and the "social network" that is Facebook. Maybe it depends on the particular group of people.

 

[Pete]

Maybe it depends on the particular group of people.

Absolutely it does, and that's what's so cool about the world. All the different takes on everything - and they're all valid.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

Most of my friends have abandoned most Facebook services, including WhatsApp and the "social network" that is Facebook. Maybe it depends on the particular group of people.

Maybe so.

The audience I cater to is local and that is where they are. So I have to go where they are.

I initially used Facebook to drive traffic to YouTube. Then FB changed their algorithm along with every other social platform to demote views on external links and promote views of internal content that keeps people on the site. We forum owners did stuff like that ourselves by making external links open in a new tab. We used coding while social media using AI. Evolution at its finest.

So now I treat FB as its own community because that is how you rank on each of them, you have to treat them as its own community.

Personally, I'm a fan of social media and marketing on it. But that doesn't mean I'm a fan of some of the practices.

 

[zappaDPJ]

I know everyone prefers to sight sources when making bold claims and I'm no different but in this instance I've had to use school boy math to calculate (because I don't have access to the necessary data) that contrary to popular opinion TAZ is not actually dead.

In fact, and I think I've posted this somewhere already, the posting rate here has increased substantially in recent times. If by that vague metric TAZ is now dead then it arguably never really lived and would surely be of no value to VerticalScope.

And now I've named the elephant in the room I think it's worth saying most of us dislike change, especially if it's an area we in which we feel comfortable but if forums do have an issue, slow to move forward is one of them. I've no idea what the future holds for TAZ but VerticalScope is a done deal so I'll wait to see how things pan out before reaching for the pitchfork.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

And now I've named the elephant in the room I think it's worth saying most of us dislike change

It's true and in reality, we have to accept and adapt to change. Because if you don't change, you become obsolete.

I'll tell a story about change...

Back when I got my first cell phone. Back when I was a skinny smoothed skin boy of 18 years. I got this awesome Nokia cell phone about as big as a brick. I could do everything on it... call people... text... change my background color from Florissant white to slightly blue Florissant white... and even play bowling!!! But the thing I loved the most? Buttons!

Then the age of the smartphone came out. And this cool kid got himself a Blackberry Curve. Buttons. Blackberry was so into their buttons that they decided to stick with buttons while all crazy companies went to this so-called touch screen that probably wasn't going to make it. Personally, I %$#@ing hated touch screens. My thumbs are too big and I'm constantly having to go back and fix crap (still to this day) but there is no way in hell that I could go back to a button phone!

Where is blackberry now? They didn't like change...

 

[Pete]

Where is blackberry now? They didn't like change...

They're about to bring out a new 2022 model based on Android but with a physical keyboard because there is still a market for it.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

They're about to bring out a new 2022 model based on Android but with a physical keyboard because there is still a market for it.

Hey sometimes old things come back!

My 15 year old is wearing bell bottoms lol but her lingo is definitely nothing I know of!

 

[zappaDPJ]

Hey sometimes old things come back!

My 15 year old is wearing bell bottoms lol but her lingo is definitely nothing I know of!

I was actually going to say a few posts up, somethings should never come back, who remembers bell bottoms...

 

[Shawn Gossman]

I was actually going to say a few posts up, somethings should never come back, who remembers bell bottoms...

LOL, her teachers are from the era where those came out. She told me they are always stopping her complementing her on her pants. I told her they're probably remembering the many trips they had back then LOL

 

[sbjsbj]

You can’t discuss on on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter.

They all have a comments section, please. And nobody wants to "discuss" things on their phones, like long discussion we see on forums, because it is tiresome to do so on a phone.

We need a forum union

Well, not a forum union like uniting forum platforms together. But within each platform, we need a union. Like reddit, we need a hub for all XF forums for example. That would bring us a step to modern times.

Well, that's why I had people aged 16-20 coming to my last forum (as well as people in the mid-late 30s coming)... to suggest that forums are dead is just as unhelpful as suggesting they are alive.

I think I can't articulate myself correctly. Small amount of numbers mean nothing. Of course you will always find people from all age groups. The question is if you can reach the masses, not if you can reach 5 teenagers. And we can't reach the masses anymore.

But what forums are, what they can be - is evolving too.

Too damn slow, 10 years behind at least.

But let me ask this: in an era where video content is produced at a terrifying rate, why do people still write books? Do people even read books any more? Books are dead. (Then again I remember the line 'print is dead' in a popular 1984 movie, so...) Or maybe books aren't dead, and books just evolved like everything else.

You are partly and fully wrong. If you picked printed newspapers as an example instead of books, you could not make this example at all. Because newspapers demonstrate it very well, they are dead. (Obivously they still run, but just like forums, they are on the sinking ship.) See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_of_newspapers

From 2005 to 2021, about 2,200 American local print newspapers closed.[12] From 2008 to 2020, the number of American newspaper journalists fell by more than half.[12]

About your example of books. It is not a fair comparison. We are talking about a medium which is there for thousands of years. It proved already its worth. It is the number 1 form of preserving knowledge, yet. So taking the number 1 example is not a good example. It is like comparing the 1st racer with the 30th racer.
In any case, even books see a decline because of video. These days many lectures on schools and universities are on video. People don't read books generally speaking once they finish their education. There are a lot of people who do, and passionately as a hobby, but the general dude does indeed not read books regularly. See: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/09/21/who-doesnt-read-books-in-america/

Roughly a quarter of American adults (23%) say they haven’t read a book in whole or in part in the past year, whether in print, electronic or audio form, according to a Pew Research Center survey of U.S. adults conducted Jan. 25-Feb. 8, 2021. Who are these non-book readers?

But since books don't rely on being printed, having them as ebooks make them accessible as ever. So they will outlive, again, for a long time. The key here that as long as the academia uses books/papers as their number 1 method of preserving knowledge, it will always live. Most likely in the future the printing will evolve into solely electronic formats. But so far ebook reading is not as pleasent as real books, the technology is not there yet imo.

I know everyone prefers to sight sources when making bold claims and I'm no different but in this instance I've had to use school boy math to calculate (because I don't have access to the necessary data) that contrary to popular opinion TAZ is not actually dead.

Well, easy to prove. We just need to see 2-3 screenshots from XF/search console/google analytics. But would the admins share their stats with us?
A forum centered around the forum world has the opportunity to provide content about the state of forums by simply showing us their stats. Yet I don't think TAZ will share their stats with us. Let's see how many new posts/thread were made in the last 10 years, or let's see their pageviews, maybe like here: https://www.theadminzone.com/thread...m-traffic-of-10-years-or-more-research.154112

I am willing to take my statement back. If I get taught better, it's fine with me.

 

[Pete]

Well, maybe we should just all give up and go live in the metaverse. Thanks for playing.

 

[sbjsbj]

Well, sarcasm is the method of those who have not much to say. Easy tactic. If you can't contribute to the points, just make a snarky remark.

In any case, I own a forum and I am actively planning to get my forum better. I successfully got 10k images for content last month (thanks Facebook). But have to find a way how can I make use of that. XF is too limited sadly.

Telling the truth doesn't make me to give up as you see. One must face the reality. And I am not satisfied with what I find in the the reality, I want more! Our forum world could do much much better. If you want progress, you must tell it like you see it. The growth can only happen if you understand where the limitations are, so you can grow out of it.

 

[Nev_Dull]

Some people live under the rock. All people who posted in here are people who are 30+ years old. Those people who remember the "glory days". And they think "forums are not dead" because their generation still exist.

It is the same with music. Who of you listens to crooners from 30s? Anyone? Yet those media was the most popular one. But they did not keep up with the times and that music died with its generation. How about 40s? 50s? Same thing. Probably the 80s are now the "it will never be dead" music culture, yet in 20 years that will be dead, too.

I think you need to find a better analogy. A lot of that "old" music is incredibly popular among modern audiences, just as classical music is. But points for trying.

You are right in saying most young people don't spend time on forums. But then, most young people don't spend time on facebook or twitter either. Similarly, young people 20 years ago didn't spend much time reading books, newspapers, or magazines. Part of being the young generation is looking for new things and new ways. A few years on and you'll find those same people checking out all those old "tried and true" things they eschewed (Yes, even magazines and newspapers, which still exist in a different form.)

Are forums dead? I don't believe so. Everything has a life cycle. Some of those life cycles are very short because the thing or technology doesn't catch on. Forums reached the peak of their life cycle some years ago because they were the only option for people who were looking for some online interaction with groups who shared their interests.

Since then, other players have entered the market dividing up the attention pie into smaller and smaller pieces. Some of those have already disappeared, yet forums persist because they still provide value. Forums are still the only thing that provides organized, long-form discussion and long term storage of those discussions. Forums won't reach the end of their life cycle until something comes along that fulfills those same requirements, and does it better.

Your mindset in this is wrong. Forums aren't a "phase" or a "fashion" tied to a particular time or generation. They are a tool which serves a purpose. Until the purpose is no longer needed or a better tool comes out ("new" doesn't equate to "better") forums will continue to share the online communication space.

 

[\o/]

They all have a comments section, please.

Try to have a structured discussion in a comments section. (Or even on Facebook.)

And nobody wants to "discuss" things on their phones

That's a hardware problem, not a software problem. The internet has split into a consumers internet (tablets/phones, TikTok, YouTube and all the other boring stuff) and a creators internet (actual keyboards, forums, blogs et cetera). Forums have already catered the second group. There was a consolidation recently, that's all.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

Well, maybe we should just all give up and go live in the metaverse. Thanks for playing.

I'm still trying to figure that stuff out. NFTs and Meta... My brain hurts!