[KTBleeding]

I agree 100% that if you lack good content, you're going to get no where and that traffic will be very miniscule if not non-existent. Content is the number one key to success on the web.

The number two key to success I feel is design. Most people won't customize their website past throwing vBadvanced on there and buying a pre-made skin. They just won't do it. This creates the "Hey check out my site", you click the link, and it looks exactly like xxxxxxxx.com with a different name in the logo.

I don't know. With the Web 2.0 popularity booming right now, and myself being a front end css developer, I don't see vB being in my life anymore. Until they make it so I don't spend 500 hours changing the table layout to non-table layout, and get rid of the hundreds of useless features, I won't see a use for it.

Don't get me wrong. I think Jelsoft did great with vB. I DO think it's still the best forum software that your money can buy and if I ever do need a forum as feature rich as vB, then I'll definitely buy a third license.. but with the sites I'm currently working on, I don't even need forums. I'm putting all of my focus into the content rather than putting all of my focus into a community where the majority of posts are complete garbage and waste of bandwidth.

This is of course my personal view on this. I think forums are less popular because the web is changing and people are getting tired of them when the site itself could be so much more than a portal with the latest posts displayed.