Is Twitter killing forums?

[Crazyfruitbat]

Since the dawn of Twitter, my site has seen a downturn in people visiting, I'm wondering if this has happened to anyone else or whether people just don't like my site lol.

From my point of view a lot of gamers have moved to twitter to communicate with each other and tend to socialize and organize gaming events on the fly, which admittedly seems a lot easier than the forums.

Don't get me wrong, we have used twitter as our advantage too for front page hits (which we probably would have never had before but from a forum point of view people are twittering instead of hitting the forums).

What do you guys think?
Chris

[Rapscallion]

I don't usually have posters who can fit their tales in 140 characters. I've seen a downturn in recent times, though I don't advertise and I've not seen any major influx from links (OMG LOOKIT THIS types) for a fair while.

I think social networking has caused quite a bit of loss, all done and said, from the forum style. It's a different animal catering to different needs.

Rapscallion

[TimberFloorAu]

I think Facebook has affected us. Greatly.

Twitter, no... lets face it Twitter is crap !

[Paul M]

Nope, I dont think Twitter, or Facebook have had any real effect on the use of any forum im a staff member of.

[cad2go]

Most of my guests are from twitter and facebook

[ChopSuey]

Twitter helps me with my website

[mrt12345]

I was thinking once you have the new generation and old ,figuring out how to use face book or we call them facebook generation and they take the time to get to know how the system works ,can you persuade them to go to a VB site. now i am new at this and i am also wondering is VB 4 new designed was intended to head towards a social networking something like facebook script or social engine script. I upgrade to 4 because i had a license (3.8) already and i am starting a new project but i have to admit i am a bit concerned about trying to get people to come to my Site i don't know even if i could call it a forum anymore with the new version even though it is a forum i just renamed it a Lounge just to create a bit of a new interest. even if you create a group on face book and you have the discussion section on each group you will see 9 out of 10 there are no discussions there. Has people forgotten how to communicate on a general basis. But there is a big difference on a forum like a technical forum and then discussions are flying. So i don't even have any members on my site i don't even quit know how all the interaction works on VB4 maybe i should join somebody's forum just to get an idea, i kind of jumped into this to fast i think. My site is to work around a game that is separated and not inter-graded into the forum except user and passwords. but i could of done the same thing with social engine. but what really help is that you cannot get all the cool mods like you can here. Thanks to all by the way for your hard work. This is verry interesting reading here

[The Geek]

If your forum was essentially a massive shoutbox then yes, Twitter will kill it (and it would deserve to kill it). Forums are discussion hubs. Twitter and Facebook are not.

Saying that, there are forums that FB, Twitter and 1,001 other sites will rightfully kill off. This isn't because FB or Twitter are in competition with forum owners rather some forum owners being in competition with FB and Twitter.

Visitors time and attention spans are finite. The number of sites vying for visitors attention is growing. The more time visitors spend on other sites the less time they have for yours.

If your site sucks and doesn't offer any interesting focus, discussion or community then I think you're probably screwed. Gone are the days where you could substitute quality content with a points system to buy members "beer.gif" or an arcade leaderboard as a method to hold a visitors attention span.

If visitors want little games (distractions) then FB or several other billions of sites will grab your visitors attention far better than mods will. Forums relying on irrelevant whistles and bells, Forums not playing to their USP (community & discussion centred around a niche subject) are doomed.

If you are a community of Widget lovers, then focus on content and discussions about widgets. Everything else just works against you.

*before I get flamed, I am sure the arcade works on many sites where it is relevant. Maybe even some where it isn't. But FWIW, I don't see many big boards ( > 1m posts) with leaderboards and points systems anymore. I see big boards dedicated to discussions.

[mrt12345]

Verry Good point about a general gaming site. My site is a real time game and real players .person to person, the forum is just a gathering place where instructions will be how to play plus strategies but the game is played out there in the real world and the other part of my site is a monitoring system and score . so this i why i went with vb because i think social network sites would not really give a focus point, players would be all over the place like facebook. next thing i know they will be growing pigs and tomatoes on my site lol. it is great to here different point of views . But i am starting to feel that i am the strange one out there, i really feel twitter is completely useless but the site is growing . i think texting is a stupid idea but yet every kid on the block just has to do it and the parents are just as bad and i have witness what really goes on and it is just like twitter with the small amount of information given out ,well why don't you just pick up the phone and talk to the guy or girl and get together something like that . This is one big question about what i want to do. the game requires for you to go out of your home loll. I have to fine that crowd that likes being an adventurist and is not afraid of using a new system. where most finally gave in and joined facebook becouse all there friends said they where on it.

[Crazyfruitbat]

Maybe just my site then haha.

it's interesting to hear people's experiences.

@The Geek, no flaming here my friend - I'm actually going to agree with you full-heartedly.
The problem with gaming websites is the fact there are so many, as you said - people's time is finite and you have to try and get their time.

I think people are still having conversations on my forums about general stuff in regards to gaming, but in the past people would come on and say 'check out this gaming video' etc and post the video. That has now moved to twitter as it is easier and potentially get more of a reaction on a quicker time scale.

As for facebook, I'm not a big fan - I haven't seen any major results in getting people from there. At the end of the day you probably are marketing your site to people who probably not that interested (ie if you own a site of VB etc how many people are really gonna be checking out your facebook page?).

I have had more signups from my podcast than any other media (of course getting the podcast to a place to do that is not an easy task at all), but it really is a strong place to get people to come to your site.

Certainly twitter helps my front page a lot - we had a story last week that got picked up around the web and then put on twitter and the combined lot got us 30,000 hits in a day and half (actually killed the site). So it is definitely useful and shouldn't be ignored at all but I find general chatter is down on my boards (just a little, but enough to notice).