Don’t Mistake Platform Diversification for Platform Death (Long Term is Decades, Not Years)
I know it is tough to look at things from a truly long term perspective, but you need to try.
I’ve now been directly managing online communities for 12 years. I’ve been involved with moderation of communities for probably 14. And I’ve been on the web for 17 years. A long term perspective doesn’t mean 3 years. It means more than that. Ideally, we’re talking decades.
Long term perspective doesn’t just mean looking backwards, either. It means looking back and looking forward. Not forward 6 months, not forward 2 years, but forward 10 years.
When someone says that a platform has died, most of the time, this just means that they lack the perspective. They are chasing the wrong things. Once in a long while, this statement is actually true, but in those cases, it is generally a particular website that is coming to an end, that has announced it’s closure, and not the idea of the tool in general.
The longer that this internet thing goes, the more tools and platforms we will have that we can build community on and that we can engage through. It becomes more fractured and more spread out. We have more options, more shiny things. In some cases, we flock to something because it is new, not because it is all that different.
When you have fewer options, it makes sense that the activity would be more concentrated. Forums are an easy example of this. Some people think forums are dying. I get tired of talking about it. Someone even said it during the panel I was at at Virtual Community Summit.
That’s totally bogus. Forums aren’t dying. Social and community efforts are just growing more diversified and they have more options to meet their needs. Forums are fine, both in the sense of standalone forums and in the forum-like functionality that you see everywhere that you care to look. They are a tool.
Tools are different from platforms owned by companies. Like, for example, MySpace. How many times have you heard someone say MySpace is dead? MySpace gets more traffic than your website (most likely). They caught a wave of positive press yesterday and today, as with the announcement that they are averaging 40,000+ new signups per day.
Chris Vanderhook, one of the investors that bought the company, told Ben Sisario of The New York Times that the growth was due to the company embracing integration with Facebook and Twitter and focusing on music. They want to be an entertainment destination.
MySpace’s traffic drops can be tied to different things. But, among them were competition and diversification. People wanted their spot and they were vulnerable. They have refocused. Should you be on MySpace? Like any platform, it depends. But, if you are a music artist or band, it seems like it’d be silly to ignore them.
Do you think that Facebook and Twitter are insulated from this? They aren’t. Consider Facebook Timeline and the tight integration with many meaningful, buzz worthy companies and social platforms. They want to be the hub. One of the keys to staying relevant over long periods of time, in many different areas, is to work with or, at least, put your support behind these hot platforms. Throw them a kind word, share your audience with them.
This is one thing I’ve picked up from Sean “Diddy” Combs. He’s been in the music industry as a producer, performer and general tastemaker for around two decades. Year after year, no matter what anyone tells you, he maintains relevance where many others fade. One of his secrets, I’ve realized, is how he embraces the young guns.
Even if he has no business with them. Even if he’ll never have business with them. He gives them respect, he praises them, collaborates with them, offers them advice. He doesn’t try to downplay their success, for fear of them taking his spot. In turn, they respect his experience and his place in the game and recognize him as a (relatively) early supporter of their career.
As far as Twitter, they continue to try to pull people into their platform and keep them there, by embedding content shared elsewhere and buying up popular applications. If Twitter.com isn’t relevant, Twitter itself is in trouble.
Whatever the tool and platform, you are likely to see a similar story, just spun in different ways. Platforms and tools rarely die. Instead, what you really see is that usage of them just becomes more diversified and specialized. It’s all about perspective.
Reading this I was reminded of Mark Twain’s quote “The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated”. Rether apt don’t you think.
Perspective is tough online. Not only have most people only been on it a few years, but the medium itself is still very new. It’s difficult to get the 10,000 foot perspective on things in part for that reason.
The way I look at it is this. I can go to a store right now, in 2012, and by a new vinyl record of many of my favorite bands. How many iterations ago was vinyl? At least four or five.
Some platforms do die, as you said, but there’s almost never something that “kills” it. 8 tracks didn’t “die” because tapes killed them, they died because there were fundamental problems with the platform and they wren’t meeting any needs that couldn’t be met elsewhere better.
As long as a platform meets a need, it can’t be killed. It may shrink but it won’t die.
Sounds a lot like an episode of the Copyright 2.0 Show suddenly…
Most of the time, when I see someone complaining that “forums are dead” it’s because they themselves have tried to start up a forum and they failed to build a community around it. They don’t understand why they failed, and refuse to accept responsibility for their own failure. It’s easier for them to say “forums are dead” than to admit they failed.
Building a “forum” is something completely different from building a “community”.
Most people install a forum but want a thriving community.
The forum is just the “tool” – it’s not the desired result (a thriving community).
If you want the forum to flourish, you’ve got to invest the time to “extending the conversations” within the forum.
That means time spent connecting with your members.
That means time spent connecting your members with each other.
That means time spent answering questions.
That means time spent asking questions.
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Forums only die when the forum owner stops investing the time to keep things moving.
If it’s not the forum owner, then who will handle this?
A “Community Manager” perhaps?
Whoever it is, someone needs to be responsible and unfortunately the site owners who claim forums to be “dead” don’t want to have the responsibility fall on their shoulders (and that’s why their forums die).
This is really helpful Patrick.
Thinking of how platforms diversify, have you noticed a strong growth trend in users interacting via mobile devices on your communities. I’ve heard this from a few community managers…
I’m happy to hear it, Serena. :) Thank you!
While I haven’t had time to adjust for it just yet, I have noticed an increase in traffic from mobile devices, whether it be tablets or phones. It’s easy enough to offer a mobile version of your community (for most platforms). So, when you have a moment, if you haven’t already, I’d say it makes sense to do it. I definitely plan to.
Patrick