Myspace The Walmart Competition Of Bboards?
 

I just finished reading this article over at the Admin Zone a day or two ago and I just wanted to take the time to repost it and start a discussion here for those of you not on that site or aware.

The orginal article: The Downfall of Mom and Pop Operated Communities?
By: [Zoints]DChapman

Fact is, this article got me thinking of some serious challenges facing many of us.

So I wanted to start some discussion to see what most of you think? Do you think communities like Myspace are a treat?

What about trying to get new members who might already be using myspace? Specially if myspace is your competition. Remeber how many of us are trying to create a "Myspace Profile".....

Discuss.

Interesting article. Food for thought.

MySpace do have actual forums, not just groups:
http://forum.myspace.com/index.cfm?f...2A5AB414531124

Yup, just wondering if there is that many people posting in theme though...

You have to bear in mind that MySpace appeals to a certain demographic which tends to be young teens. There is also a large audience outside of MySpace which is maturer. Alas, I don't think it'll be too much of a threat in the long-run. Like everything else, the novelty will wear off.

i believe Dean C is more than likely right

I've really considered getting a myspace page and adding links/content from my site to try to draw some members from there....

That is a good idea. Concidering more people who aren't internet savy know about Myspace more than just some forum community. MySpace, I think is just more popular, and well known so people go to what they know/heard of rather than what they don't. I think making a MySpace page and directing "friends" or whatever you make on that page to your site/forum. Could end up helping you. Since forums like vB offer so much more.

Profile's are important. The more other people see it the more they work on there profile. The people who see it want one themselves. The profiles are going to be the most important part of my sites. It's the main reason I went with VB, all the great profile mods.

i believe myspace is a stage in the net evolution, but how permanent or longlasting of a stage, we shall see. another step in the evolution process is ning. www.ning.com which is an interesting concept. i'm sure someone else here can explain it better.

but didn't someone do a ning type community where members could start their own forum, but basically be a subdomain of that main forum? i can't remember anything these days.

if myspace does not try to improve its overall interface and features it will soon become obsolete even to minute boards. the problem really is that youngsters don't see any alternatives and just conform to well...conformity. they are nieve to see that tons of companies and marketers are using MySpace as a promotional tool, even though if you asked a majority of MySpace users they would say they are anti-establishment. oh the irony:)

I'll be blunt here, I knew MySpace was a problem for me the day local people started asking me if I had MySpace page. Considering I live in middle of nowhere USA I was shocked to find so many locals using it.

I think it hurts the general discussion sites the most, if you've exploited a nitch I would not be that worried about it as you can provide things that MySpace can't.

I have to say my site took a huge hit due to myspace. 90% of the members that disappeared I found on myspace and they're on their on a daily basis.

The only time they come back is to announce:

"I can now be found on myspace.com/<!-- insert member name -->"

Btw: here's my myspace.com/wcmradio, please add! :dead:

that's hitting the nail on the head with a sledgehammer! i couldn't agree more. i think forums like offtopic.com will see the most attrition rate. but if your forum focuses on specifics, like "body waxing only the nipple area of asian american males", then i think you'll still do fine.:chinese:

I'm not really worried at all.

MySpace just shows that there are more things people want; profiles. So we make some profiles, add in some content, and it will eventually level out.

If you think you can just clone what they've done at myspace and have the members coming back, you'll be in for a surprise. You have to provide something that MySpace does not, something that will make them want to register and become part of the community.

My post was over simplified. I did not mean it would be immediate. I meant we'll have to add these myspace profile features to standard products. It will be slow but independent websites will start making a come back.

I view this as a friendly free advertising spot. :) I frequent myspace and I've set up camp to try to drive traffic to my own site.

I think Myspace is more of just a stepping stone more then anything. Look at ezboard; it has millions of members and many of us have used it but when people get sick of the flaws they move on to something better.

I agree. My members tend to be older (ie 90% are over 21). They have MySpace profiles (I see them discussing it on the board), but my board is still their 'hub'.

I registered at MySpace to she what all the hoopla was about, but I guess I'm too 'old' to get the thrill. I thought the whole thing was clunky and boring...

a threat? a threat to what. I don't think anyone should be worried about losing traffic to myspace, if they are losing traffic, then they shouldn't blame myspace, they should look and see what they did wrong on their own part that led the old users to go to myspace.

And last thing, I think myspace is going to get less members, unless it does something about it's horrible template system and page structure and it's overused ads.

Myspace was sold at $580 mil. so if not less, were going to see a lot more ads and other campaigns at myspace.

Lets not forget who bought Myspace.com, I seriously doubt myspace is going away. It could be a google or yahoo in the birthing process.

I have found it hard to pry people who have never used a forum off the myspace page, if thats all they have been using.

People seem stuck in this mode of starring at their page and waiting for a comment on their page or pictures.

I think its feeding a need for self gradification.

How have you tried to 'pry people off MySpace'? What do you mean by that?

When my new website launches, I'm going to ban the word myspace from ever being used.

Ever.

Keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer.

Myspace really doesn't impact me at all, because I target working professionals. People who join EA are looking for intelligent conversation - not the kind of stuff you find in the larger off-topic communities that attract younger members.

I know it's out there, because I keep seeing people wanting to emulate it with mods - sort of like everybody used to want to emulate the hot or not picture rating site. I think it's a community that's going to be around a long time BUT, I think that the buzz around it will die down when the next thing comes along.

Amy

I don't think they're a threat at all.

It's just another choice in life ...
it's up to you to offer something 'better'.

Why do people choose AOL over Yahoo; Google over MSN?
If you cater to your audience they will stay longer; and, more will join.

• Offer fresh new content.
• Allow personalization - we all learn differently; empower your members to control how and what they see on your site
• Don't over complicate - we visit sites to learn, buy, and/or entertain ... simplify, what and how you provide your content
  

MySpace DOES steal members, because it already has so many. THAT'S its power right now: until we get a strong "number 2" site for networkers, it will stay king. DESPITE the horrible system.

Smaller, close knit communities with active moderation will always be a more enjoyable way to pass time than massive free-for-alls like myspace.

.2c

I had the same problem. I started a tiny InvisionFree board and got about 50 members. I pretty much stopped visiting it for about a month and a half to work on the website to go with it. When I took a break from the website to visit the board, I found that one person had blabbed about MySpace and a bunch of people had read it and just about all the membership had mass-migrated to MySpace and all my moderators had either gone with them or just sat there feebly and then mustered enough energy to resign.
I was left with myself, one admin who promptly became a devout Christian and comdemned my board (it was a Harry Potter board), another admin who simply pretended that nothing had happened and bravely posted things that no one read, a third one who simply pretended that the board didn't exist, and one who simply disappeared into thin air and couldn't be reached by any means.
All because of MySpace and Yahoo and places like them.
Also, the ideas in this thread were good. I tried to register on MySpace so I could direct traffic to my site and vBulletin board, but it said that I was "ineligible to register". I think it had something to do with the image verification. I'm not good with stuff like that because they don't show the letters clearly. I mean, if a computer can't read the picture, why do they have to make it murky?
I disagree. Probably about a million of those members are only there to try and regain their lost members, who are the other 39 million.:rolleyes:

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... ;)