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IP.Board & The Forum Will Be Dead Within 5 Years


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I'm pretty sure this same topic was alsot posted 5 years ago ;)

The Internet has always been about people talking to each other and sharing. Facebook, Twitter, etc. have actually made forums (and in term our business) more accessible as more and more people in the general populace are comfortable talking online. It's become commonplace for people to post messages and talk to others online.

So I would respectfully disagree in the assessment that Facebook and such will kill forums when we have seen our business do better with the huge acceptance of online communication by the masses. Look at it this way: when your grandmother is cool with talking to others online then any medium to do that is surely going to stick around.

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Anyone remember BBS(Bulletin Board Systems).... they were around before the internet and required you to call from one modem to another to interact with others...my point is fourms and such have existed even before the internet and will be around well into the future. Theses POPULAR media choises are just fads and wil fade just as fast but Forums will always be around :)

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Charles, what amazes me is the fact that everyone touts Social Media as the only site service online. Facebook simply has become stagnant. They simply haven't made any significant changes to Facebook since its inception. What's unique about IPB and vBulletin is that they're open source, you can purchase a license to install it on your site and it's constantly being improved.

Facebook? You cannot license the software, you can't install it on your own website, you cannot modify it for your own use. Facebook simply is losing its appeal. There was a time when I would use Facebook on a semi regular basis, but it's just not interesting anymore. They've completely redesigned the GUI to where I don't use it any longer. I don't use Twitter anymore either. Now that IPB serves my use ... I think everyone touts off Facebook as if it were just created.

I just don't think that Facebook does any innovating anymore. When they opened up to average users, instead of just college users, it was cool and interesting. But, Facebook just doesn't innovate. Shoot, they've had the same design interface since I signed up many years ago ... it's like Zuckerberg has been sticking with the same software that runs the site and doesn't improve the "software" that runs Facebook.com. I just don't think he designed the software, which may explain quite a bit.

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Forums have taken a beating from the intial social media hype but like fashion forums will turn full circle and become very much part of the future landscape, some who are weak at the knees may fall to the crap sm offers, as for IPB offers many great features and is very much a great bet moving forward.

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I didn't read all of the posts as some were very long (I was being lazy), and I think that is a difference between Social Media and Forums. Social media has it's own place in the world. Posts are generally short and comments shorter. You can have a quick browse read a few things and interact with people on a personal level. It is just that it is social. You represent yourself as a person. With a forum you represent yourself, generally, as an avatar with a username. It does not have that same level of social interactivity. But in my opinion forums weren't intended to.

I think the original poster could have come up with some more original ideas if they thought they were going to "save the day", I think if it needed rescuing and your tips are to make some small skinning changes then your tips fall way below the mark. However I do not think it needs rescuing.

When you visit a social media site you only look at the posts from the last few hours, you do not trawl through tweets from yesterday, last week let alone last year. With a forum you do. A forum is a collection of discussions which are searchable. It is a resource for discussing topics in an environment where you know you have people who have a similar interest.


FB will be dead in less then 3 years... so see.. we all have opinions... Remember myspace?




I disagree with this entirely. Facebook and MySpace are fundamentally different. Facebook has done a lot in the way of enabling developers to interact with their software. I am afraid to say it because I am sure I will get stick for it but Facebook has revolutionised Social Networking. It has enabled the likes of game developers such as Zynga to develop games which you can play with your friends. It has enabled Spotify to let friends discover music between themselves. Facebook as 800 Million users, that is not going to go away anytime soon. Facebook is rich with data about real people. That is something which is incredibly valuable and with them providing a platform for developers I think it is here to stay. So yes, I firmly disagree with your statement.


If you have a weak site, with weak content, niche, sense of community, yes, your forum may be dead.



I think Facebook and other social media sites are just going to accelerate the weak players from the strong players. Unless facebook makes their own forum software, it is not going to happen. Just like email did not kill the paper industry, neither is facebook going to. In fact, learn to embrace facebook to drive traffic to your forum community, don't be afraid of your people leaving to go to facebook.




I agree exactly with you. Your forum is only as strong as your community. If you do not have a community then regardless of how good the software may or may not be you have nothing to offer the users. Social media sites are making this more apparent. Yes it has killed off a lot of forums, but only those which had no strong community. If it were a simple task of building a really good community we would all have very sucesful sites, but it is not that simple. You have to work hard, you have to invest a lot of time, you have to promote your site and optimize it. This doesn't happen by itself. If you want to get organic traffic and you want a community you need to work hard for it. Having the expectation that IPS can deliver you an outstanding community on a plate is extermely unrealistic.


Have to totally disagree. Frankly I detest FB and only use it to keep in touch with family and a few friends. In fact I came this > < close to closing my account a few days ago because the "Timeline" addition was nearly the last straw in things about it I dislike.



The best way to lose members to FB and others, is to add links and likes to social media on your forum.




Again sorry Sandi, but I disagree with you on two points, timeline and social media buttons. Social media buttons are a great way to publicise your site. Social media sites have traffic and you are allowed to advertise in posts on these sites. It is a great way to get exposure. Most of your members are already a member of one of the social media sites. You are not going to lose members by having a button allowing them to like a post of yours on Facebook or by allowing them to tweet a topic they have feel they want to share with the world. These are great tools.

Talking about timeline is rather offtopic but I will say that I think it is a great addition to Facebook, it allows people to express themselves and it make their profiles more unique and about them. You can get a real sense of a person, and follow their achievements. It allows you to get a quick overview of a person. Facebook friends should be just that, they should be friends of yours. And it is nice to see what your friends have been up to and it is nice to see what they have achieved. I do not see the problem with it.
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The above comments just rude, and makes me assume you haven't bothered to read this thread.

For the record I detest Facebook and it's relationship and backing from the CIA and MI5. I couldn't agree more with all the criticisms made of it by all of the members here.

There's a lot of points I want to take up, but I don't fancy doing that on an iPod, so I'll wai till I get to a machine.

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I didn't read all of the posts as some were very long (I was being lazy), and I think that is a difference between Social Media and Forums. Social media has it's own place in the world. Posts are generally short and comments shorter. You can have a quick browse read a few things and interact with people on a personal level. It is just that it is social. You represent yourself as a person. With a forum you represent yourself, generally, as an avatar with a username. It does not have that same level of social interactivity. But in my opinion forums weren't intended to.




The italic proves to be the reason even though I sadly have an account, I will never use it, and never bothered.
Facebook is quite literally a place for shallow minds to share shallow thoughts in a shallow atmosphere without any reprisal or consequences for the words input.
For the "lazy" who do not want a focused conversation about a topic, or simply wish to troll.
This is why FB will die IMHO.
as will the rest of this "Social Media" craze.... it has 0 substance.
Having said ALL that.... what the client wants the client gets... so obviously I do deal with setting up bits relevant to this(Content like buttons and whatnot), simply my own humble opinion.
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I see this in a very simple and uncomplicated way: who uses the Internet to learn, teach and share knowledge, can not take Facebook or any other social network seriously. This was made to spend hours talking about nothing or posting photos.

I mean, if you have a forum about NOTHING, you should really worry... Otherwise, people who don't want to waste hours and hours, won't let forum dies.

Simple like that.

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Social media is much more successful in the fight over internet users their time. Even when users are on forums, then facebook keeps pinging them that there is a new message in their other browser tab, while it instantly sends an email. Social media is just much better at engagement.

While social media hurts forums, it will not kill forums.

However, many modern websites may seriously hurt forums.

There are many modern blogs and information driven sites that do a much better job at answering questions, serving up opinions and debate. If IPS keeps a sharp eye on that, and on the modern functionality that social media offers, then it has a great future.

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The italic proves to be the reason even though I sadly have an account, I will never use it, and never bothered.


Facebook is quite literally a place for shallow minds to share shallow thoughts in a shallow atmosphere without any reprisal or consequences for the words input.


For the "lazy" who do not want a focused conversation about a topic, or simply wish to troll.


This is why FB will die IMHO.


as will the rest of this "Social Media" craze.... it has 0 substance.


Having said ALL that.... what the client wants the client gets... so obviously I do deal with setting up bits relevant to this(Content like buttons and whatnot), simply my own humble opinion.




I don't want you think I was actually being lazy, I just scan read the longer posts, so I wanted to apologise if I had missed anything important out.

I wouldn't say the social media craze has zero substance. It serves its very own purpose, if like me you spend the majority of your time away from the people who matter most to you it is a place to when you are feeling home sick. Your family can upload pictures of your cousins, your brothers, your nephews and your grandchilder. You may not have the time to go round your aunt's and look at the latest pictures she has taken of her child but she can post them on Facebook and you can look and share your comments on it. To me that is what Facebook is about. It's that level of personal interactivity you can have with your friends and family. A forum is not that, not that at all. Hence why I think it is not really a competition, and I agere whole heartedly with the statement I have highlighted below in red:


I see this in a very simple and uncomplicated way: who uses the Internet to learn, teach and share knowledge, can not take Facebook or any other social network seriously. This was made to spend hours talking about nothing or posting photos.



I mean, [color=#ff0000]if you have a forum about NOTHING, you should really worry[/color]... Otherwise, people who don't want to waste hours and hours, won't let forum dies.



Simple like that.




I however use the internet to learn, teach and share knowledge. The majority of my time online is dedicated to just that. But as I am away from people who I would like to keep in touch with it adds that additional level in which I can interact with them. I think social media fills a purpose in its own right. People should be concentrating on the content of their forums, if your forum has no substance then you may as well give up.
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I don't want you think I was actually being lazy, I just scan read the longer posts, so I wanted to apologise if I had missed anything important out.



I wouldn't say the social media craze has zero substance. It serves its very own purpose, if like me you spend the majority of your time away from the people who matter most to you it is a place to when you are feeling home sick. Your family can upload pictures of your cousins, your brothers, your nephews and your grandchilder. You may not have the time to go round your aunt's and look at the latest pictures she has taken of her child but she can post them on Facebook and you can look and share your comments on it. To me that is what Facebook is about. It's that level of personal interactivity you can have with your friends and family. A forum is not that, not that at all. Hence why I think it is not really a competition, and I agere whole heartedly with the statement I have highlighted below in red:





I however use the internet to learn, teach and share knowledge. The majority of my time online is dedicated to just that. But as I am away from people who I would like to keep in touch with it adds that additional level in which I can interact with them. I think social media fills a purpose in its own right. People should be concentrating on the content of their forums, if your forum has no substance then you may as well give up.



Well said, and elaborates the point, and difference likely better than I ever could.
I just call family(that would be why I have 0 use for FB lol), but I'm apparently weird :P .
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FB will be dead in less then 3 years... so see.. we all have opinions... Remember myspace?




OP raise a valid point with respect to the role of social media and the decline in forum discussion participation. It is a paradigm shift in social discourse.

Let us compare Invision Power versus Facebook using Compete.

post-1449-0-14938600-1333817682_thumb.jp

Versus

post-1449-0-62768100-1333817728_thumb.jp
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The problem I have is that, time and time again, Facebook groupies continue to defend the social media network site. But, take a look at a lot of your tech and internet startups that end up tanking once they went public. The problem with Facebook is that the company will be under pressure from its investors and stockholders to start innovating and I think they're going to fail at that.

IPS has always continued to innovate its product line which is what makes it unique. Most forum software developers continue to innovate their product line. But, Facebook has nothing going for it other than its upcoming IPO. Once that IPO is unleashed on the public, it'll be a Wall Street darling for a few months but Facebook will be under a lot of pressure to increase its profits. Facebook isn't exactly known for innovating its product line and they have none.

With IPS, IPS has its own product line. IP.Board, IP.Content, IP.Blog, IP.Download, IP.Gallery, Nexus, and so on ... they have an entire line of products that integrate with IP.Board. IPS has even started to transform IP.Board into a social networking product. I think the next product that IPS will end up creating is a social networking application that integrates into IP.Board but is its own applicaion, like IP.Blog and IP.Content.

Facebook is simply becoming a dinosaur. The only reason it has outlasted MySpace is because it had a larger cash buildup. Also, Facebook will be beholden to stockholders. Mark Z is going to end up losing control of his own company, especially considering the problems that Facebook has been having with Congress over its privacy violations.

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OP raise a valid point with respect to the role of social media and the decline in forum discussion participation. It is a paradigm shift in social discourse.



Let us compare Invision Power versus Facebook using Compete.



post-1449-0-14938600-1333817682_thumb.jp

Versus



post-1449-0-62768100-1333817728_thumb.jp


You really don't know how to compare sites do you....
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[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]With IPS, IPS has its own product line. IP.Board, IP.Content, IP.Blog, IP.Download, IP.Gallery, Nexus, and so on ... they have an entire line of products that integrate with IP.Board. IPS has even started to transform IP.Board into a social networking product. I think the next product that IPS will end up creating is a social networking application that integrates into IP.Board but is its own applicaion, like IP.Blog and IP.Content.[/font][/color]



Being a huge fan of Robert's Social Groups app, I can already say that IPS already has a significant social networking application and the Status Updates continues to become more robust. Then there is the IP Chat which although not a social networking application, does enhance IPS' suite of products and don't forget Shoutbox.
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I have to agree. But, I think IPS needs to stop these "facebook is awesome, message forums suck" topics from continuing to pop up. It's distracting to those of us who license the software and it's disrupting and demoralizing to those of us who support IPS. We support IPS products, pay our licenses and visit these support forums for answers to solutions regarding IPS products. It's not that Facebook shouldn't be discussed here, but it serves no purpose for topics like this one to be nothing more than "feeding that nasty troll" that keeps dredging these topics up.

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Clients can talk about whatever they want. I get pissed off that people make 10000 SEO topics, but it doesn't detract from anything or make me think less of IPS in any way.

Its just a discussion, I see nothing in this topic that is "troll like".

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Facebooks had it, it was a bad Initial comparison. What I should've concentrated more on was Google+ and LinkedIn, which has forum style structure that is also combined with a massive social networking platform. My demographic are professionals.

Facebook is geared around children, or adults who act like children. LinkedIn is for serious people, and as per my header post, is completely uncatered for despite being one of the top 15 websites in the world (if I recall, last time I looked it was 11 or 12).

While Facebook is used as a sharing tool, I want it's share buttons highly visible throughout my forum however. Again, I'll reply when I get to a machine.

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Facebook always is, and always will be, a social network for college students. But, I think Facebook has become drab, droll and simply boring. It's like that new videogame that you just bought that you keep playing but that never changes. Eventually you get bored with it. I think FB has simply gotten too stagnant and they tout these new features as the biggest thing in the tech industry.

I'm a regular member on Huffington Post.com and I have to say that everytime Facebook has announced a new feature, the media has reported on these as "major announcements". I ended up removing the Facebook login method from my forums because I'm not satisfied with how Facebook treats the privacy of its users. Not only that, I'm just not comfortable with Facebook "spiders" crawling my site.

Facebook has been investigated by the FTC at the urging of lawmakers as well as coming under attack by consumer advocates. I think they've simply become the new Microsoft in their attitudes towards their own customers. I'm not against Facebook, I just think that they don't respect the privacy of their users.

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These topics are always very interesting.


Facebook is fantastic news for forum owners. You can get people signing up and participating with a few short clicks. You can share topics quickly to a very wide audience and with the new timeline format being forced upon pages and brands, it's even more apparent that Facebook is not a good tool for fans to interact in a meaningful way.


Indeed, I have direct experience of a brand that used to use Facebook as a community purchase IPB as they had outgrown Facebook.

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I agree with the points various people have made that social media such as Twitter and Facebook are excellent ways of driving people to your forum, particularly if your community targets a specific niche.

However I also agree with the original poster's point about IPB's current sharing buttons being inadequate (in fact for a long time I never even noticed they were there). That's why on my site, the top of every topic page now looks like this:

%7Boption%7D

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There is a reason why I have disabled the Facebook login. Mostly, because many new members had been registering without a forum username. Don't ask me how they managed to pull this off but I realized that the Facebook login method was defective. I would love to be able to allow my members to login through Facebook but until IPS disabled the feature to register while using their Facebook account ... I just have no use for it.

I'm just surprised that this isn't an option for IPS admins. Like a feature that has a set of options:

1. Login w. Facebook: Yes | No
2. Register w. Facebook: Yes | No

As it stands, the Facebook connection is defective. There is no option to only allow login only methods. I want to be able to disallow registration because of Facebook's problems with spammers.

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