Forums vs Facebook or other social media

DannyITR

Administrator
Staff member
Social media and Facebook in particular have contributed to killing off many internet forums who have seen their traffic diminish heavily. It's interesting because I have many people tell me (usually older people) that they still feel forums are far superior in terms of information consumption than Facebook is and they hate having to go on social media. Everything posted here can be classified and searched for at any point in the future. Most of the content on social is lost in the jungle within days.

Do why do you guys and girls still continue to frequent forums such as this one? Do you also feel forums are a better place to spend time online? What improvements (if any) do you think forums could implement to reverse the flow of the next generation of people flocking to social media?

My first suggestion would be to make forums much more mobile friendly. Tapatalk is a good start but I find it incredibly confusing and not very intuitive. I wonder if a superior interface could allow an app like Tapatalk to provide meaningful competition to Facebook by truly linking the majority of the forums on the internet. Curious to know what MR thinks.
 
I enjoy way much more the layout of a forum rather than some chaotic facebook page.
 
I don't even use tapatalk.... I'm old school on my 21inch PC screen for forums

I also like the fact that on a forum you can get to know the members, facebook it can honestly be anyone.... what's the difference ? Credibility.... example:
Anything Broody says = .....(no comment).....
Anything Gregster says = has more legitimacy/good opinion
 
Facebook c'est TROP accessible.


C'est parfait pour démarrer de quoi ou créer un hype mais c'est impossible d'avoir une discussion et une argumentation comme on a ici.

-Le monde post des emoshit pis des gif
-Le monde tag d'autre monde
-Ca écrit des commentaires genre Ok,yes, oui, va chier, suce ma marde
 
MR est le seul forum que je fréquente encore. Les gens ont une ouverture d'esprit et les discussions se passe toujours dans le respect.

Blague à part, fuck you Facebook
 
I never go on MR with my mobile cause it's not user-friendly... i.e. it sucks! but I much prefer the format of forums for information! facebook has ANYTHING on it, very chaotic search of information media.
 
Facebook tu peux pas chercher facilement
Facebook a pas de threads out le OP peut ajouter a son build thread (d'auto ou d'ordi ou de maison)
Facebook les commentaires sont tjrs moins de 100 caractères tandis qu'un forum les gens répondent souvent de vraies réponses.

Sérieux je catch pas la préférence Facebook sauf pour des trucs éphémère

Les sections/postes de MR qui pourraient être sur Facebook:
- Spotted thread
- you laugh you loose
- the insert message to insert car thread
- what your car/truck looks like
- confess here
- thread de la température de merde
- tu Coune thread
Ce genre de discussion sans fin de type "chat"

Tout le reste est réellement mieux sur un forum!!

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk
 
MR c'est le seul forum que je fréquente encore et tres peu. Facebook/IG c'est bon pour les photos mais sans plus.
 
Facebook, c’est bon pour un user lorsqu’il veut attirer l’attention sur lui: comme la page des cool dads. Des echo chambers en surnombre.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
FAcebook et les autres (twitter )cest pour du chat talk, les forums cest pour des discussions. Je le vois simplement comme ca.
Je vais sur facebook sur mobile
Je vais sur MR sur desktop, le seul forum que je frequente maintenant...
 
The forum is fine, Tapatalk is just fine too, but the new generation is broken. Can't fix it sorry
 
Les forum ne vont pas mourire quand Il couvre des sujets niche.
Tunning, System de son, hobby.

mais ce n est plus la premier source d information pour le grand publique (normie)

pour ma part je viens lire et poster ici quand j ai du temp.
bien installer avec mon destop PC.

utilise mon Cell que pour des referance rapide.
Donc j utilise jamais mon Cell pour le contenue d un forum qui demande plus d implication.
 
Regardons les choses en face. Internet contient 1000 et 1 plateforme sur lesquels on peut interagir et Facebook est celle dont il y a eu le plus de développement pour attirer et garder en laisse les utilisateurs par toutes sortes de tactiques.

Pour avoir essayer, je trouve que la plateforme forum comme ici est le meilleur pour la recherche d'information et l'interaction à long terme. On oublie souvent que Facebook, lorsque tu reviens sur un sujet 2 jours après, c'est pas la*majorité du monde qui vont voir le nouveau commentaire et alimenter la discussion. Si on compte 10% des gens qui retourne dans le fil de discussion, c'est déjà bon. Trop d'énergie est mis sur l'instantané. En voulant s'accrocher aux tendances, on perd l'essentiel de l'information et la qualité.
 
Pretty sure it's a generational thing.

Most of my forum browsing is done on a computer. Just like 15 years ago.

My perception:
The forum gen would generally speaking search / read info.
The new gen goes on facebook and feels they're entitled to getting a timely response to their question. No research/effort needed. Instant gratification.

Reading the same questions over and over again on Facebook's feed gets old really quickly. I've never cared much for the IG attention whores either.
 
MR est voué a disparaitre anyway, le taux de natalité est quasiment a 0 ,la plupart des OG sont pratiquement tous parti , et les jeunes d'aujourd'hui on grandi avec avec facebook et sont habitué à ca , bref c'est le temps de vendre MR
 
I'm still a member on a bunch fo forums, like really, a bunch, I'm not super active on any of them, but I lurk, I use facebook for messenger and classified ads. If I want to know or discuss something, I use forums, or google, which leads me to forums anyways :p
 
I enjoy way much more the layout of a forum rather than some chaotic facebook page.

definitely this.

i've never liked facebook for anything other than sort of connecting with acquaintances and friends. i don't use any other social media, other than linkedin.

i find forums are more intimate, and better for sharing specific information. it's more organized, but yes, a lot of work could go into improving organization. there's no way social media takes the place of forums. those who prefer social media-sourced automotive information are not really forum-material people.

i'll think of one of my favourite forums for automotive information : the car lounge, aka yellow sofa domain.
that place has TONS of information because it has tons of users all across the US, some guys from Canada and even a few guys over seas who jump in. although traffic has slowed for every forum, the car lounge is never dead. there are a lot more people in the states, and people have more spending money, so they buy and track more cars. in canada, we're more conservative with our money, less debt, less income, higher gas prices and less population. the car scene is definitively smaller by default.

let me go into detail with my opinion here (because i still have some coffee left in my mug)

so a few things could keep a car forum more alive :
- more information, news articles, reviews about upcoming and current cars in the market (yes we have some, but for some reason I rarely check them out here. for car info, I tend to rely on "the car lounge", C&D or other sources;
- more members (with more spending money...so not members like me lol) who contribute with opinions, experience and projects;
- more events with the forum in question in presence. we do this on occasion (and it's great) but more would be better.
- cars and coffee done in the way of porsche prestige this past summer, with the presence of a manufacturer.

there are some things that are increasingly getting in the way of this.
- the CUV;
- the fact that people, buyers, the new and current generations are buying practicality over pleasure, convenience over effortful, automatic over manual, lease over project. it's just a intelligent & efficient, but boring, way of life. and it's sucking for car forums because people no longer have to do anything themselves. they don't need information. they don't want information. they don't want projects. work life is increasingly competitive and we have less time to enjoy ourselves (seriously, it comes down to that).
- and with market demands comes cars with tech over the barebone fun car. there are less and less fun cars out there.

does this mean this forum is dead? fuck no. definitely not. there will always be car guys (and girls) as few as there may be. and in my opinion, i believe the fun car will make a comeback. cool old cars will eventually find there ways into scrap yards, the remainder of them will be untouchably expensive, and the market will be so over-saturated with hybrid rav-4s that people will quickly get bored and want to enjoy themselves in ways sex can't.

it's our responsibility to keep the fun car alive and well. put your money where your mouth is and buy fun manual cars. don't bitch if you bough a fully loaded Tuscon with lane departure warning. (ok a base Mazda3 with a stick isn't quite that material but whatever). we need to push towards fun electric cars so that the future and the enthusiast can get along.

ok i'm done with my coffee. have a good weekend guys.

shit i just read dany's initial post and it looks like i went a fucking tangent big time. oh well lol.
 
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Forum, hands down. FB is good as a community page, similar to the homepage of MR (I come directly to the forum and never see any of the news - this has been discussed before) and can be used to feature interesting threads we might have missed and drive traffic to them. Right now it's mostly car reviews (not interested) and some automotive news (always in French for some reason). You can add 'featured cars', 'interesting drives', 'automotive photography' etc... On a forum there are multiple threads going on at the same time in topic specific areas. You can add to it and the stream/conversation continues. On FB, the feed (by this I mean our own feed with all of the people and pages we each follow) takes over and topics get lost in as little as an hour.

Volvo Forum Quebec switched from a forum layout to FB and it died. It's the same questions over and over again and participation fell off a cliff. The forum was not able to recover and it now a shell of it's former self.

I'm also a member of Infiniti Scene forum and the FX/QX page on FB (not related). Again, the forum is much better. You can see DYI threads, have complete conversations about various topics VS over on FB where it's bite size information.

As for medium, I do most of my usage on the computer to catch up on my favourite threads; then switch over to Tapatalk while watching TV for additional browsing.

In short, the forum is the place to be and the lively hood of the people, social media has to be used to drive traffic to it.
 
i just hate browsing on a mobile for whatever app I have but especially on a browser. Forums are dying for the most part but it's so much more enjoyable. sad days.
 
I browse this forum in "desktop" mode even on my mobile phone and I like it like that. I much prefer the layout of forums. I also like being "anonymous" on forums, I can call someone a ******, whore, butt plug user, etc or give a controversial opinion and don't have to be worried about being fired from my job or getting SJWs or whiteknights ringing at my door. I also like that Google search can bring me to a thread here when I look for a specific problem with my car. I like the MR community and I hope it can survive. Facebook groups are lame.
 
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