Why has the once most popular Internet community been neglected by users?

Social media is becoming more diverse, and the number of Chinese Internet users is increasing every year. Forums, as a form of content community that was born at the beginning of the rise of the Chinese Internet, have gradually faded out of the public's view. Why do netizens nowadays no longer like to visit forums? Let's see what the Tiantianwen friends think.

Forums were once an important social platform that accompanied the rise of the Chinese Internet and were the youth of many active netizens born in the millennium.

• In 1997, Maopu was born in the emerging Chinese Internet.
• In 1999, Tianya was established in Beijing
• Entering the millennium, more and more portal websites have established forums...

These BBS communities once set off a trend on the Chinese Internet, and the most influential communities on the Chinese Internet were once born among them. The forums gave birth to a group of the most popular Internet celebrities at the time and became the most influential social and cultural symbols.

However, when the timeline is turned to the past five years, the Internet world has undergone earth-shaking changes. The forums under major portal websites have been shut down one after another.

• In 2018, Sohu Community announced its closure
• In 2021, Maopu Community announced the closure of the posting function
• At the end of 2022, NetEase Forum announced its closure...

When searching for "forum" on the web today, only Tianya is still struggling to survive on the homepage. People are gradually realizing that in the increasingly complex Internet world, the voice of traditional forums has faded.

The new generation of young people prefer fragmented short videos and light social networking. The forums that used to be bustling with people are now deserted. Why do netizens nowadays not like to visit forums? Tiantianwen has sorted out the opinions of the Q&A friends. Let's discuss the reasons why forums are unpopular.

Tiantianwen No. 218: Community forums are gradually disappearing. What is the reason why users don’t like to visit community forums?

The content of this article is partly derived from the wonderful answers of @大鱼煮海棠@阿啵呲嘚@杭州马小胖@sankki.com

1. Can the forum still attract users?

When it comes to the forum's lack of popularity, a large part of the reason lies in the characteristics of the forum itself. This hardcore community form may have long been unable to adapt to the development of the current Internet era.

Compared with many later Internet social platforms, forums are relatively primitive and generally have the following characteristics:

1. User-driven, small operating space

Forums are essentially user-based, providing a platform for content production and consumption. Forum content is basically based on user "tap water", with content output by users to users, and there is very little room for forum operators to participate.

This model, in which the operator has a very low presence, provides the forum with the most open and free discussion environment, thereby attracting a large number of users.

However, the space for operation is infinitely compressed. It is difficult for operators to monetize the forum traffic through content push and other means, and it is difficult for operators to organize activities in the forum that meet the community atmosphere and user needs. Users also seem to prefer administrators who are invisible except for maintaining the rules and data functions, so the management difficulty is not small.

2. Slow iteration and relatively simple gameplay

As a user-driven content community, the functions required for the forum to maintain its ecology are also very basic, and the corresponding section classification function is basically enough to meet the needs.

Therefore, the frequency of forum function updates is very low, and even many forums today still maintain the style of ten years ago. The gameplay of the forum will basically not change, and there are few updates to create a growth system or wide-ranging hot activities that are in line with the growth of the forum user population. It can be said that the forum's traffic diversion has nothing to do with its own functional gameplay.

The retention of forum users depends almost entirely on the discussion environment formed by users themselves to maintain stickiness. Active users generally do not leave, but it is difficult to attract new users. Once old users are no longer active in the forum for various reasons, the fragile community ecological balance will be broken and the forum traffic will immediately decrease.

3. The content is relatively simple, mainly text

Nowadays, social software is becoming more and more abundant, with content forms ranging from text to pictures, voice and video. However, due to the primitive community form and slow iteration mentioned above, forums still maintain a content form with text as the main content and pictures as the supplement.

At a time when short video ecosystems are popular, the single content format of forums is difficult to produce high-quality content in a stable manner. Over time, the quality of forum content will decline, and users will gradually be lost.

2. Why do creators no longer like to use forums?

The decline in the quality of forum content is also closely related to the loss of creators.

As one of the most free forms of content communities, forums were once favored by many creators. Well-known authors such as Tianxia Bachang and their popular IPs were all born in forums. But why can't forums now give birth to a second "Ghost Blowing Out the Light"?

1. Weak feedback on release

The forum's monetization ability is very weak compared to other current content platforms. Early forum creators created content spontaneously, and operators basically did not provide incentive mechanisms to encourage creators.

The high-quality content of the forum is generally long pictures or text sharing, which takes a long time to create and is costly. However, the content push of the forum is sorted by the time of the most recent reply, and the published content can easily be drowned out by other posts.

The forum does not have the rich functions of forwarding, liking, and rewarding that other social platforms provide. The reading feedback received by the authors is far less than that of other graphic and text platforms such as WeChat public accounts. The input and output are not proportional at all. Over time, fewer and fewer people are "generating electricity for love."

Moreover, because the forum does not have a traffic push mechanism, the method of monetization through advertising investment does not work in the forum. The creators' traffic generation cycle in the forum is very slow and monetization is also very difficult. Accordingly, they will choose other content platforms where monetization is more convenient.

2. Single form and high information concentration

As mentioned above, forums basically only provide content publishing services that are mainly text and images. For content creators, there are very few options, and they cannot adapt to current content models that are highly accepted by the public, such as short videos.

The most popular content formats nowadays are basically very fragmented. Short videos that can get tens of thousands of views in a few seconds, and microblogs that can get thousands of likes and comments in a few sentences are the content formats favored by users. However, in forums, creators often have to create long graphic content, which costs much more than short articles and short videos, so fewer and fewer creators choose forums.

3. Policy and other reasons have led to a reduction in content freedom

The competitiveness of forums among creators was once provided by their great freedom, but in recent years, due to some policy reasons, content publishing on Internet platforms is no longer as free as before.

Since the forum is user-led and weakly managed, it is difficult for the operator to supervise the content posted by users in the forum, which often leads to some chaos. In recent years, many forums have been forced to undergo a "big purge", resulting in the loss of original users, the destruction of the community atmosphere, and the departure of creators.

3. Why do content consumers no longer like to visit forums?

In addition to the loss of creators, the forum’s former social atmosphere has also gradually disappeared. What is causing content consumers to leave the forum?

1. Few high-quality contents

Discussions and content on the forum are basically mixed, and the mechanism of sorting posts by the most recent reply time makes it difficult for content consumers to filter out useful content in the forum. Although there are functions such as content section partitioning and adding highlights within the forum, many times, discussion and chat posts have more replies and are easily pushed to the front row. Users have to find useful content among various "spam", which is not very efficient.

In addition, the number of excellent creators in the forum is constantly decreasing. Now when users post questions in the forum, they get fewer and fewer effective replies. Random creation within the forum cannot meet the needs of content consumers, so content consumers are gradually lost.

2. High barriers to entry and changing community atmosphere

In order to maintain the community atmosphere and content quality, early forums often set up complicated registration and login mechanisms, such as invitation codes, etc. Some sections even set entry barriers. Although this method maintains the internal environment of the forum, it also excludes more and more new users.

Although many forums have formed a good community atmosphere, the small circles within them are actually exclusive, and it may be difficult for new users to integrate into the originally active forum circles. However, once the forum tries to break the circle and absorb more fresh blood, it will inevitably affect the original community ecology of the forum and cause dissatisfaction among the original old users.

"Change of taste" is also one of the reasons why old users leave the forum.

3. Run on other platforms

When Chinese forums first emerged, the Chinese Internet was also in its infancy. At that time, forums were able to attract a large number of users simply by selling points such as interest-based social networking and high-quality discussions.

However, with the booming development of the Internet today, users have more and more choices, and there are faster and more convenient ways to communicate. For text and pictures, there are public accounts, for pictures, there is Xiaohongshu, for long videos, there is Bilibili, for short videos, there are Tik Tok and Kuaishou, for questions and answers, there are Zhihu, and for communities, there are Douban and Tieba...

When the forum is no longer the user's first choice, but instead becomes a relatively primitive and simple one among these products, users will naturally no longer choose the forum.

4. What are people who still visit forums looking for?

Today, although the voice of forums is getting weaker and weaker, in many niche areas, forums are still places where users are active.

For example, Autohome, a forum focusing on automobile content, is divided into multiple sub-sections according to car series, regions, etc. There is also a special question-and-answer area to facilitate communication among netizens in the same field.

The community forum nga in the gaming field has divided special editions for different games according to the game category index. It regularly carries information on new games and the latest news on competitive events. When you open the forum homepage, the header of the game special edition is often the latest information post in the field, making it convenient for players to obtain the latest news.

Who is visiting these still active forums and what are they browsing?

We found that these forums generally have the following characteristics:

1. They are all niche communities focusing on a certain type of interest.
2. Relatively closed, retaining a certain community atmosphere
3. A centralized place for publishing resources

As the tide receded, the characteristics of the forum being closed to the outside world and free to the inside eventually became its advantage in survival. When people mention forums now, "niche" has replaced "hot posts" as its synonym. A community with weak management but a certain entry threshold is still the paradise pursued by people in various interest circles, and it is also the effect that many platforms dedicated to similar social models are trying to achieve.

Nowadays, forums have gradually faded from the public eye, while various communities on the Internet that are similar to the former forums, such as Douban and Tieba, are still gathering in "niche circles" where people are attracted by common points.

People are still looking for the secret codes for joining Douban groups hidden in the group rules, and are still trying to communicate through segmented groups or forums. Similar dramas about new and old users and community atmosphere are still being played out... Perhaps the forum will die, but similar content models are always around us.

Source: Tiantianwen Topics Selection

"Tiantianwen" is a mutual question-and-answer module under the Everyone is a Product Manager community, dedicated to the learning and exchange of knowledge in the fields of products, operations, marketing, etc.

This column is compiled, edited and published by @李绮雯. Everyone is welcome to ask questions and communicate.

The title image is from Unsplash, based on the CC0 agreement