forums like ours and what Myspace is apples and oranges..... while we cannot compete with that.... ( i dont think there are 40 million poets in the whole world)... i CAN use myspace to attract/ extract potential members... we just have to not be lazy about what needs to be done... its so easy to build the forum... and expect the members to come.... even word of mouth is not enough.... we have to surf whereever the people go... and "go fishing"

thas my 2cents

I think its kind of funny the person that wrote that article is doing the exact same thing :)

1,387,638 threads
9,595,284 post

Only a couple :p

Yeah, we should keep a close eye on it.

That being said, I run a message board that caters to a niche profession. Many in the profession work in government agencies, where Myspace is often blocked. The demographics of members on my board are much different; the median user age is in the early 30s. The off-topic discussion is usually very intelligent. My competition isn't Myspace, but rather listservs.

That doesn't mean I'm going to get lazy, though.

I looked at the Myspace boards, and the posts don't look much different than what you would find on sites catering to teens and "gAmErZ" - an abundance of one-line posts, post-padding, and messages that don't enlighten readers or contribute to the thread. There doesn't seem to be a "sense of community."

There's hundreds of generic general interest boards, and competition is tough. For most general interest boards, there's little distinguishing one from the other. If their primary audience is in the teens and early 20s, and they can't differentiate themselves from Myspace, they might be in for a world of hurt. If the users tend to be older or more intelligent (Straight Dope Message Board), or there's a strong sense of community (Something Awful), they should have nothing to worry about.

Or possibly worse? Time will tell.

this thread is old

I. Don't. Care. My point was still valid and not worthy of a new topic. However, I do appreciate you taking the time to inform us on the age of the thread.

Apparently it was worthy of you even bothering replying to me. Who said my comment was directed at you? I hope the one comment you made wasn't directed at me. I didn't write the article. And I don't run a myspace style forum. FYI

It seems to me there's a lot of "head in the sand" going on here. You guys who don't think MySpace is a threat should really reassess how MySpace works and compare/contrast it to the real reason why people join and visit forums:

Community.

Don't let the posts/discussion/content get in the way of realizing that your forum, first and foremost, is a community of people who share the same interests. People come to your community to be with others who think/feel/etc like them.

Combine this with the fact that MySpace, and not
"Message Board X", is where the "Internet Generation 2.0" (13-21) are looking for this sense of community during their time online.

Like it or not, MySpace is growing faster than your forum, simply due to the fact that almost every young person with a computer (and lack of parental supervision) is jumping on MySpace, simply by way of word of mouth. It's a massive snowball effect and if you're just positioning yourself to pick up the scraps left by MySpace, that's fine. It's kind of myopic in my opinion, but more power to you.

MySpace really is the Walmart of online communities, and you are running the "Mom and Pop" store that's about to be sat on. Unless you happen to be running the "I hate MySpace" forum.

Simple. Vbulletin add a community system and the thread is over... ;)