My 2 cents

[TheWorldNewsMedia.org]

I view my future competitor as Reddit….

I have been thinking of some features that would make this IPS equal to and superior what is out there now….

Users should be able to start their own categories. (Not sure how this would be done… but Reddit seems to have it worked out) This is becoming a major reason why I think forum traffic isn’t growing as fast as it once was.

Videos uploaded to forum posts should auto expand and be similar to how video is on Facebook and Twitter etc…. instead of just a file uploaded for others to download. (I know Gallery does this however it is separate from the forum)

Audio posts should play similarly …. people like the idea of audio commenting on a post as well.



Messaging between members needs to have more a Facebook Messenger feel… almost an IM feel rather than post and reply…..

I believe forums will one day supersede social media….. once people begin to see the advantage of topic based conversation rather than the firehose news feeds. The problem is that forums haven’t innovated to make photo and video sharing as easy as social media has.

If there is one company that can do it… I’m betting on you guys.

I know I’m asking a LOT….

But if we worked together… and I get a new URL… we could create something to rival Reddit… and eventually even conquer the titans.

I would love to hear your thoughts…

Take care,

Michael

[CP]

Are you sure you would like to hear mine? Even if I asked that question, because you posted a question, then I feel I have the right to reply even if you like it or not. 

Let me state, forums are NOT DEAD. There are a lot of people who do not care for FB or Reddit and such. I do agree, messaging like FB would be a cool thing. That I agree with. Kinda like a chat room where members could talk to one another. Something IPS should think about adding. But what do I know? I don't know anything or so what I have been told or lead to believe.

Forums will always be around no matter what you think. I have stated and posted about these types of things for a while now. Yes, people like social media but will continue posting on forums. If you (as a site) give in to social media, then yes, you lost the battle and what forums are all about. As I have said in the past and continue to say, social media is a trend and with all trends, there is a trend killer. 

 

 

[TheWorldNewsMedia.org]

I agree that forums will always be around. I don't want to give in to social media... just make forums equal when it comes to tools and ease of use. These forums have already done 80% of that compared to forums of the 1990's.

Let me know what you think of forum.theworldnewsmedia.org

I would like to see it grow into something huge... but that would take more logistics than I personally know how to do.

I also hate Facebook.. and Reddit just seems too "messy" for me....

I do like the fact that their users can create their own categories  (groups, pages etc.) in order to form their own communities.

I haven't figured out how to make that happen yet.

[CP]

4 minutes ago, Michael Krewson said:

I agree that forums will always be around. I don't want to give in to social media... just make forums equal when it comes to tools and ease of use. These forums have already done 80% of that compared to forums of the 1990's.

Let me know what you think of forum.theworldnewsmedia.org

I would like to see it grow into something huge... but that would take more logistics than I personally know how to do.

I also hate Facebook.. and Reddit just seems too "messy" for me....

I do like the fact that their users can create their own categories  (groups, pages etc.) in order to form their own communities.

I haven't figured out how to make that happen yet.

I agree to making forums equal I think you have the right mind set on that.  How I view things, IPS has made their suite very competitive to other software I have seen and used. But, Improvements need to be made to make it compete better with social media. 

As for your site, I am an honest guy, and do not hold back. The forums are a mess. If it were me, I would use the classic forum style. 

I do not like FB either. As a matter in fact, I do not have an account. Or with any other social media website. To me, those sites are an invasion of privacy.

As for members creating their own categories for groups pages and such, sounds like a good idea to me. I never thought about that but a good addiction. 

And last but not least, to make it happen you have to get members on your side to pull off your ideas. The more you have pulling your ideas, the better.  

[Wonster]

Forums are used to talk about certain fields of activity (find solutions, advice, etc).

Social media websites are for socializing, not for specialized talking.

There should always be a demand for forums, because social networking can't replace them.

Some social networking sites features are good to have. Features that facilitates the interaction between members.

[CP]

Post removed. Bad post on my part.

[Joel R]

On 11/13/2016 at 3:54 PM, amator said:

Forums are used to talk about certain fields of activity (find solutions, advice, etc).

Social media websites are for socializing, not for specialized talking.

There should always be a demand for forums, because social networking can't replace them.

Some social networking sites features are good to have. Features that facilitates the interaction between members.

Unfortunately, it's far easier for social networks to build forums as an add-on than for forums to build social networking into the core.

 

 

[Wonster]

7 hours ago, Joel R said:

build forums as an add-on than for forums to build social networking into the core.

Then why they do not have forums? There are lots of people with lots of interests and would need lots of forums.

This forums platform can be a hybrid by adding social circles and messenger like FB. This can even be better than social networks because there are more people with same interests.

Forums lose ground in favor of social network because on social networks they can bond, on forums they come, post, have their answer and good bye.

[opentype]

I don’t agree to the general distinction between “independent forums/communities” and “social networks” some suggest here. Facebook has groups and messaging services like Line, WhatsApp and so on get extremely popular in that regard as well. The groups people create in these services serve the same purpose as traditional forums do. And IPS has private messaging that is similar to sites like Facebook. In fact, people have complained that IPS has gone in that direction of making a Facebook-like messenger. 

So these things aren’t that much different in their design. The problem is: People have limited time and focus. They don’t check the same 50 sites/apps every morning, let alone several times a day. They go to “hubs”. Just as you don’t go to 50 clubs saturday evening. You go to one or two clubs, where you know everyone else is going. Social networks are those places on the internet. So it is much less about a certain feature Facebook, Reddit or whatever have. If you copy that feature it won’t help. You need to become a “hub” for your niche and then your site will work just fine and people will also “socialize” there, wether your site is called a social network or not. 

[Wonster]

8 minutes ago, opentype said:

You need to become a “hub” for your niche and then your site will work just fine and people will also “socialize” there, wether your site is called a social network or not. 

Yeah, this forums platforms can be a good solution for niche communities, but it is not very "social" inclined. Follow feature is not a social feature and messages app is very good compared with other forums, but a chat solution like telegram, FB, etc., is needed. The conventional chat, as @Lindy said, is used by very few members.

[opentype]

1 hour ago, amator said:

… but a chat solution like telegram, FB, etc., is needed. 

To achieve what compared to what? 

If I would try to read between the lines, I would guess we are not talking about the difference between forum and social network (i.e. websites), but between a stand-alone website and “platform that has apps”. That’s a separate topic. (And a big and complicated one.)

[Matt]

Some interesting thoughts here. If I can just pick up on the private messaging side of this debate. Typically we want as much content to be posted on the forum as possible. We really don't want to encourage members to disappear into private pockets that no one else can read. If a good amount of your content was in these private pockets, your entire community would look stagnant and rarely updated which isn't what you want to entice more activity.

[Heyhoe]

The thing i love most about forums is that the discussion is documented, organised and therefore searchable.

Trying to find something social media is a pain.

[Matt]

29 minutes ago, Heyhoe said:

The thing i love most about forums is that the discussion is documented, organised and therefore searchable.

Trying to find something social media is a pain.

That's exactly it. Social media is a stream of "now" (or "most recently") after a few days it drops from your feed as new stuff pushes it down. Communities retain a full searchable history of every discussion.

[Simon Woods]

I agree with the last three posts 100%. If people want a phenomenal messenger service then why are you signing up to a forum-based community? The bulk of your focus should be on making posts.

Further, IPS staff have said on these forums that Pages has been one of the biggest selling points of their product so it seems to me that people actually want to use IPS to build communities centred around forums and traditional websites/blogs. In this instance, messaging only muddies the water.

Can IPS messaging be better? Probably. Should it be competing with social media sites? No, not at all.

[Joel R]

13 hours ago, Matt said:

Some interesting thoughts here. If I can just pick up on the private messaging side of this debate. Typically we want as much content to be posted on the forum as possible. We really don't want to encourage members to disappear into private pockets that no one else can read. If a good amount of your content was in these private pockets, your entire community would look stagnant and rarely updated which isn't what you want to entice more activity.

Can I ask, and this is because you probably have one of the deepest insights into forum architecture and I genuinely respect that, how you think private albums and private blogs may play into this concern of an open community?  Do you think there needs to be more 'teaser' features to invite or entice the public into private content?  And how do you think this will affect how you design new social engagement features in 4.2?  

12 hours ago, Matt said:

That's exactly it. Social media is a stream of "now" (or "most recently") after a few days it drops from your feed as new stuff pushes it down. Communities retain a full searchable history of every discussion.

This is interesting because I think one of the greatest innovations in v4 was Activity Streams, which is ... chronologically based.  And therefore fits more of the mold of social media streams.  Which is one step away from Facebook's Messenger (just add interactive actions such as reply, like, etc.)  

[Claire Field]

7 hours ago, Joel R said:

This is interesting because I think one of the greatest innovations in v4 was Activity Streams, which is ... chronologically based.  And therefore fits more of the mold of social media streams.  Which is one step away from Facebook's Messenger (just add interactive actions such as reply, like, etc.)  

The important difference is that when the content drops off the feed it is easily found again because of how IPS apps are organised. Easily searchable. Trying to find something I saw in my Facebook feed a week ago requires lots of scrolling and frustration. Lol

[Matt]

7 hours ago, Joel R said:

Can I ask, and this is because you probably have one of the deepest insights into forum architecture and I genuinely respect that, how you think private albums and private blogs may play into this concern of an open community?  Do you think there needs to be more 'teaser' features to invite or entice the public into private content?  And how do you think this will affect how you design new social engagement features in 4.2?  

This is interesting because I think one of the greatest innovations in v4 was Activity Streams, which is ... chronologically based.  And therefore fits more of the mold of social media streams.  Which is one step away from Facebook's Messenger (just add interactive actions such as reply, like, etc.)  

IPS4 is used by a very wide range of communities that all have different needs. Personally, I wouldn't use private blogs or albums because I would want as much to be public (or at least available to a good number of people via group permissions). That said, there are some cases where private albums and blogs make sense, especially in gaming communities where different clans share a single space.

In terms of social media. It really is a "now" thing. It's disposable. The stream is content discovery. The default setting is "All Activity" and it does give you a snapshot of what is going on "now" but it also has filters to allow you to personalise the feed to suit your discovery needs. The "now" snapshot encourages you to delve deeper into the community rather than consume the feed alone and then close the browser.

[LiquidFractal]

On 11/18/2016 at 0:14 AM, Matt said:

Social media is a stream of "now" (or "most recently") after a few days it drops from your feed as new stuff pushes it down. Communities retain a full searchable history of every discussion

Couldn't have said it better.  As a scholar, my audience tends to be more eclectic than the majority of forums crowds, so social media has always struck me as very ahistorical and "flavour-of-the-month"ish.  But for those of us who see the unfolding of debates and exchange of ideas as particularly important, nothing beats forums.  For me, one of the IPS forums sweet spots is the ease with which you can quote multiple statements from a post and have them automatically populate your reply as quotes, which makes it easy for people to engage with ideas and opinions in more depth without having the interface interrupt one's train of thought.

Wordsworth once wrote that every writer "must himself create the taste by which he is to be relished," and similarly I think online interfaces tend to generate the type of crowd who will use it.  This is why why I personally boycott Facebook, Twitter, and all such services (save accounts I need in order to create IPB interfaces) - they have their uses, but they are not strongholds for in-depth thinking the way forums will always be.

[Wonster]

[Matt]

We already did! 

[LiquidFractal]

On 11/23/2016 at 3:14 AM, Matt said:

We already did! 

Indeed you did....and without the comb-overs!

[13.]

On 13.11.2016 at 11:27 PM, Michael Krewson said:

Users should be able to start their own categories.

We're need it too.

[TheWorldNewsMedia.org]

Great discussion everyone. My forum changed out of my subdomain to http://www.theworldnewsmedia.org

May I also add another want / need?

Please embrace threaded discussions. 

One of my users refers to forums as "slow and clunky".... and when I compare them to real time discussions on social media or spot.im etc.... I think that is a vital change that must be made....

People want instant....as in the ability for you to see that I am typing this reply... and It should be threaded ;-)

I think this is mostly being done via ajax nowadays? Correct me if I am wrong.

Spot.im seems to be able to do all of this as an add-on to any website without compromising SEO.