Are forums dying as a species?

PurpleIT

I think forums are safe, but they will surely evolve. IMO, what we are on now it just a more refined Usenet (which is still around).

The wonderful thing about Usenet (and now these forums) is that you can focus on a particular area of interest; "social" sites are not meant for anything in depth, they are all about the small-talk for the masses while sites like this are for more in-depth conversations that most people don't want to hear.

Snow.bros

@Shdwmage I did mention that forums are focused specifically on a subject but social media will tend to focus on many different subjects like the same argument can be discussed in some social media platform, at the same time social media are to expand their platforms to meet the needs of their users. Surely the number of users are decreasing.

@MTciscoguy I get your point 100% its obviously doing well now but lets look at the future of forums here, do you think it will still be common as it is today later in the future or will many people still be using forums in some many years to come? The results of that could be unpredictable that's what I am trying to point out although you might disagree but there is a good chance that forums could be replaced by something else but they will exist as an alternative and they will be less popular which decreases the number of users (don't get me wrong though I love forums its still a very good resource). I mean who predicted that SMS's would be replaced by instant messaging applications and SMSs are still being used but many people prefer instant messaging over SMSs so you can probably see where this is going to end up.

Shdwmage

I think technology forums will continue for a very long time, but you move into other venues, I can see them dying. They aren't quite as ... savvy ... as the rest of us.

Heero

The problem with forums is that they are designed to do almost anything. However, in the last decade there have been many web based services that have emerged that can do specific things better than forums can. These services eat into the user-base of forums and the people that want to do that specific thing will go use that service instead of a forum.

Services like twitter/facebook/linkedin/etc... eat into forum user-bases, but there will always be some functionality that is best served by forums.

pitviper

DevilWAH wrote: »

remember this one few years old now.

Google BBS Terminal

Ooooh man, this brings back memories!!!!!!

ThePuterGeek

I will tell you that I am extremely happy and thankful for this community!