Many have pointed out a variety of interesting elements.

I'd say Facebook is definitely "sucking away" traffic from many websites, not just forums.

Users share content on Facebook, comment things on Facebook but hardly stick on other sites.

With forums however I'd say it depends on the niche. Facebook is quite specific about what is acceptable. Certain forums which tackle topics that are not "accepted" on Facebook or not openly discussed amongst "friends" on Facebook will not be affected negatively.

It is sure though, Facebook has changed the web and the future of forums in general!

yes it is !!! :) any thing that pulls users from your pages is unsticky, which means you lose them. The basic thread like design of face book comments are in itself a forum

No doubt facebook is killing off forums slowly.

Forums are no where near where they used to be in terms of popularity and membership.

Its just are not as instant and mobile as facebook is... with apps for blackberries and iphones now adays facebook stays connected with members 24/7 by sending push notifications right to your hand. While forums still need us to sign in typically on a computer where we have to search for useful content even when apps are available for forums its not as easy and or free like it is for facebook.

We shall see where the future takes us forum wise...

but for now its definitely

Facebook 1 - Forums 0

evolve and integrate ;)

to an extent... but i find the integration really only benefits facebook for the majority of it.

your not seeing facebook come out with vbulletin apps - its vice versa.

Yeah its not good at all. People on my forum are now talking about what they talk about on Facebook, so its like "on facebook we are having a discussion about..."

I really never saw this coming. In my mind forums are dying unless you are massive enough like American Idol or Big Brother or a really niche market.

Facebook isn't going anywhere, its become the internet for so many people. It's a real shame but I don't see my 13 year old community lasting. Even with Facebook connect, why bother posting when you have your facebook community to do it.

What's your site about, PamelaE? if you dont mind me asking (:

I asked the same question about a year ago when I saw the drain that my board suffered and openly asked my members if I should just do away with it and we move to Facebook. It's not worth the price of the server plus the URL if no one's there to enjoy it. My members wanted to stay so where we are. I don't think that Facebook is killing forums, but they do offer, beyond the social networking thing, is the ability to multi level their game system. I asked about incorporating those types of games on vBulletin with no response.

Facebook is the current trend. Trends come and go and it too will go the way of Myspace. We said the same thing about Friendster before that and the Asian Avenue-owned social forums before that. There's always some new big thing to take its place, but we need to stay competitive and offer the average poster something different to hold their attention...

I think Facebook may be taking away from some of the time some members spend on certain forums, (we run a photo contest and critique website) but having a Facebook website related to our contest website has brought in tons of new members. Every week we have 6 winners in each of the 6 categories. So I take the images with the ribbons we post in the forum like below
http://www.bytephoto.com/forums/2011...w-winners.html

Post them to Facebook as the current weeks winners, tag those photos to any members who won and may also have a FB account. All photographers online have tons of other photographer FB friends. They eventually see their friend winning, and want to join in on the fun :D

I also tell members that for any reason the server may go down, I will post a status on Facebook.
Try to use it as free advertising on FB. I also created a Twitter account that I post to with the wins and other things and it too has pulled in a lot of followers in the short time I have been actively using it the past 3 months