Forums: Precursor to Social Media
Posted in: Web Design • Written by: RyJek
We had a good friend back in the day. A friend which was with us wherever we went. Everything comes to an end eventually and we learn to move on. Our aforementioned friend is of course the forums, which were a very important part of our internet life for a very long time, they still are but their importance is fading. How did something so important started losing its relevance? Everything changes, including the way we browse the web, what once was a necessity is becoming a hassle and it’s not only the case with the forums. For the sake of this article though, we’re going to focus on it in particular.
Those of course are not all the forum scripts out there, not by a long shot. They do, though, take a major piece of the cake with clients like Joomla , VLC , Mozilla Add-ons , Metallica , Best Buy , Logitech and literally thousands more. Not so long ago, forums were still the best and pretty much only medium to talk with your clients / visitors, so everyone had to have one.
For the same reason they will remain with us for a long time. The archeologists have found parts of forums dating back to as early as 1994, though some people believe that they existed already on Usenet’s as early as in 1970′s. That pretty much means that the idea of Internet Forums in one shape or another was always with us, since we began using the Internet in our homes.
I do presume you know how a Forum works and I do not have to explain it. If by some chance that is not the case though, you can find all the information you need in that regard by reading this article on Wikipedia.
As mentioned, the idea is a very old one, so it was just a matter of time before someone came up with other ideas to replace it and so they did.
The Fall (snipped out to save space, see site for full text)
So what are these new solutions?
Facebook
MySpace
Twitter
So with all those alternatives, are there still some reasons to choose forums?
Where forums have the advantage
Order
That’s the reason why forums became so popular in the first place. Regardless of the amount of users and information they put out, if handled correctly the design of the forums can handle it. All the posts are organized and easy to access. You can join any conversation at any given time and still not lose any bit of information.
For the same reason, if any problem was already solved on the forum, users more often than not will be able to find that solution without the need of having to ask questions themselves and wait for the response.
Self-sufficiency Potential
While Facebook Fan-Pages have the same potential to live on their own with the input from your visitors alone, forums bring it to a whole different level. As a matter of fact, forums are expected to be run mostly by your users and their interactions with each other. Once the wheels start turning, they will do so for quite some time with or without your input. Your users can take some of the work off you by helping other users with their problems. They can even help you with yours.
Time Friendly
It doesn’t really matter how much time your users want to spend on your forum. Anything they choose will work for them. As mentioned, everything is there at any given time, so the intervals between reading the information does not impact greatly the experience.
General Awareness
Probably the majority of users on the Internet have used a forum at least once. What that means for you, is that your visitors will mostly know how to use yours already. Depending on what kind of population you attract, there will be a varying amount people who also know the general rules on any forum.
Where Forums Fall Short
Pace
We do things faster and faster every year. So it’s just natural that we expect the solutions we use to be quicker with the passage of time. Forums do not live up to that expectation. Sometimes it may take days to get an answer to your question, if you get one at all, but you have to keep coming back all the time to see if anyone replied. It can be as frustrating as it sounds and was the main reason we needed some alternatives. Some forums were putting a shout-box for the users to chat in real-time to take care of that problem, but those were not practical enough to actually do that.
Amount of reading
The acronym TLDR (too long didn’t read) tells the whole story. The amount of posts you need to read to get all the information on the subject your interested in can go in tens of pages and literally takes hours and if you ask for a summary, you will be most often told to read the whole topic. The younger the viewers, the less patience they have to read long threads and will give up on getting any information if they have to look for it for too long.
Design
If you want your forums to be truly yours you have to create a layout for them which will not only look good but be user-friendly. Remember, that sometimes your visitors may have to spend a considerable amount of time reading stuff on there. If you do not choose the colors wisely you will discourage people from staying on your forum or coming back to it all together.
Do you need a forum?
The answer to that is simply: it depends.
