Roger McDaniels wrote:
I've run a couple of forums, at least one of which is still limping along on life support, and I think that forums are dying or dead. There will be a few geezers (myself included) that will continue to use them, and as long as the cost and administrative burden are not excessive, then leave it running, but technology and the way that most people use it has moved on, and it's not moving back. Without the users/content, the forums usefulness is diminished, but I still like it for internal discussions within small communities like ours.
I thought that was going to happen two years ago, but now I'm not sure at all. There are plenty of forums that are still thriving, and certainly won't be replaced by Facebook.
The change is that *small* forums and those mostly driven by *conversation* rather than technical content are dying in favor of Facebook, yes. But every big off-road forum is still going gangbusters, and it's because they have huge tech communities and Facebook is *shit* for tech-talk. It's also shit for tech-support, and you're seeing plenty of thriving forums around higher end tech things and their user communities.
Forums are not dead in general, though Facebook is certainly killing certain types (like this one).
If you just want to converse, forums are overkill. If you want a persistent build-thread with technical help from a community, there's nothing better.
--Donnie
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