Will Facebook Kill Forums?

[evcom]

FB wants to strengthen their Group features and so it was no surprise when FB recently contacted group owners and invited them to online webinars etc...A few weeks ago, they also announced that it will be possible to send monthly newsletters to Group members. So they are keen to strengthen their position further. On the other hand I do not believe that forums will go because of FB. A well organized forum is still far better than a Facebook group, if done right.

 

[DigNap15]

I think Youtube has also been a forum killer.
Years ago If wanted to know how to do something I'd have to find a forum, join it, and then ask the questions and wait for a good reply.
With youtube you can just search how to fit a trailer, how to install a new hard drive, how to uses html and its there.

 

[DigNap15]

Yes my Facebook oppositon forums New Zealand Politics) are full of memes, and full of oneliners.
And as Philpug said above, the content is soon buried.

 

[DigNap15]

The biggest problem as I see it, is getting forums to have the same recogntion as Facebook, or Pinterest, or Quoara, or Reddit or Youtube.
These are all well known brands.
Ask anyone under 40 what a forum is and their eyes glaze over.

 

[Drastic]

The default template of a legacy forum is killing forums faster than social media can.

We need someone like Russ to give us a sweet center column based thread style.

Let's put our content right where the users have been trained to look for the last ten years.

 

[alsarcastic]

Let's put our content right where the users have been trained to look for the last ten years.

That’s my weekend project sorted. Thank you for the inspiration.

 

[DigNap15]

That's says all.

But let's come to the original question, post 10 years ago "Will Facebook Kill Forums?" After 10 years, I can definitely say "Facebook already kill Forums". I'm operating 2 small local forums. The only one that still seems to be active, is the one that I'm using only Facebook login. I believe that this is because users found easy to Register/Login with just a mouse click.

Categories-> Forums-> Threads is an outdated style anymore. People prefer to see a page with all latest post. Sometimes they found there interest posts in categories that they'll never browse. Happen to me many times. eg some very good posts for Server Maintenance, a category out of my interest. But those post got my attention.

Give a look to online users, not only here, but also to any site that support the feature to show where the user is. Most of them is on the "What's New". What it means? That they want to see only fresh content and don't spend time to move from category to category.

I believe that many webmaster did wrong use of the categorized content. So many categories, so many forums, so many subforums.

Chris

A very inciteful post
Myself I still like the Categories and organistion.
But I do know that many of my members look at What's New first!

 

[DigNap15]

Just came in my mind an example about wrong usage of forum organization, from my own experience.

A part of my community is for presentation Movies and TV Shows for a specific country. So, I created 2 categories for them, and I started adding forums like: Drama, Romance, Adventure, etc etc. Something more than 10 forums per category. Then I started adding my content.

And at that point I realized how wrong I was when I setup my forum structure. My content was just 127 "Threads". That's all the Movies and TV Shows. And I had separated them to 20+ forums !!! There was a forum without even one thread. So I came back and I left only 2 forums. One for Movies, and one for TV Shows. Since that time I seen that users started visiting that section much more often than before.

What was my mistake? The structure was correct. But was correct for whom? For big sites that serve 1000+ Movies and TV Shows. So to separate them in Drama, Adventure etc was correct for them. But not for me with 127 threads only.

So true
I think many forums have far too many categories
Admins just like setting them up.
My forum is fairly busy we have a category for Technology and Gaming.
This inscludes, tvs, phones, computers and gaming.
I often get asked new for sub categories like space etc.
But I always say that until the main category is really busy there is no point in adding more.
People like to visit busy forums

 

[Joel R]

Just came in my mind an example about wrong usage of forum organization, from my own experience.

A part of my community is for presentation Movies and TV Shows for a specific country. So, I created 2 categories for them, and I started adding forums like: Drama, Romance, Adventure, etc etc. Something more than 10 forums per category. Then I started adding my content.

And at that point I realized how wrong I was when I setup my forum structure. My content was just 127 "Threads". That's all the Movies and TV Shows. And I had separated them to 20+ forums !!! There was a forum without even one thread. So I came back and I left only 2 forums. One for Movies, and one for TV Shows. Since that time I seen that users started visiting that section much more often than before.

What was my mistake? The structure was correct. But was correct for whom? For big sites that serve 1000+ Movies and TV Shows. So to separate them in Drama, Adventure etc was correct for them. But not for me with 127 threads only.

I agree.

Admins incorrectly build categories for what they'd like their community to grow into, not what the community is like today.

 

[DigNap15]

I see no one has mentioned Reddit or Quora as fellow contributors to the demise of our traditonal forums.
I used to be a member of Quara and got some good answers etc.
But then the emails became just too much, and the questions just too ridiiulous
"eg what would happen if Nepal invaded the USA?"

 

[DigNap15]

Eg I just found out that here in New Zealand Reddit has 245,000 members.
My forum has 1,100
But I only started 5 months ago

 

[zappaDPJ]

Facebook and other social platforms have taken a bit of a pounding recently which if nothing else goes to show that even the brightest star will eventually fade and collapse in on itself. Facebook's insistence on allowing hateful content on the pretext that it's news has resulted in a lot of lost revenue from advertising, a plunging share price and further alienation of the brand in general.

Perhaps it's a good time for forums to start fighting back especially now that the the two leading forum products are providing some of the functionality needed to compete. Like it or not there is an element of competition, some of us, myself included have lost forums to Facebook groups so I'm hoping the bad news for Facebook results in some good news for us forum owners.

 

[LeadCrow]

Facebook and other social media are on the defensive. They pushed their luck too hard and resistance is mounting.
People are questioning wether it was even reasonable to join locked platforms and dance to the whim of the platform holder instead of enjoying sovereignity over their online experience, free from the interference of parties benefitting from stimulating virality and addiction to their services to breaking point. Sure, you have a profile there and arent beholden to any particular SM group, but higher authority's actions are even more harmful to your digital life.

Anyone smart likely packed back to community-first discussion boards, where the grass is green, the thoughts pseudonymously expressed freely and the admins arent leveraging skynet to manipulate readers' every thought, action and click for an extra dollar.

 

[BreoganGal]

facebook like all social networks has its birth, rise and decline, it will not be the exception

 

[DigNap15]

facebook like all social networks has its birth, rise and decline, it will not be the exception

Two years later and they are still here.
I think they may go back to being a place to find old friends and family.

People seem to have moved to Twitter, or Tik Tok, or Instagram or Reddit

(I never knew why they were allowed to buy Instagram)

 

[BreoganGal]

Two years later and they are still here.
I think they may go back to being a place to find old friends and family.

People seem to have moved to Twitter, or Tik Tok, or Instagram or Reddit

(I never knew why they were allowed to buy Instagram)

At this rate everything will end up in the hands of "Meta" (Facebook) and on the other hand Google, and when a project dies it is absorbed by another and that's it.

 

[Gerry]

There are many forum owners who always say "Facebook is ruining everything". Many of them may also say this out of laziness. You should also offer the members of the forum something such as content, awards, events, etc.. You just have to approach the topic with the right motivation and take care of your members and create some unique features.