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davecom · Aug 10, 2009, 03:57 PM

I don't know if this is more of a lounge question or Feedback - but I feel the amount of traffic on the MacNN Forums - specifically the Applications and Mac OS X section has decreased significantly over the past few years (do statistics confirm this?). I'm wondering if the management has any plans to do some sort of marketing to bring in new blood. I remember in the early 2000s those were thriving forums with as much as hundreds of posts a day. Now, it seems most of that traffic has moved to another site (macrumors.com perhaps?) or Apple's own forum site. Is this true, is this the general consensus? The Lounge area has stayed quite busy, but for me personally, that's not the main attraction of the MacNN forums.

It seemed back in the day that any question posted to one of the technical forums would be answered quickly by someone who gave near-expert advice. This no longer appears to be the case.

Please don't take this post as an attack, it's more of a - am I imagining the change in traffic and if not, is there a plan to reinvigorate the technical forums? Thanks!

Spheric Harlot · Aug 10, 2009, 04:10 PM

a) many of the questions asked nowadays are repeats. Many probably don't bother replying to the same question a fourth time.

b) a whole slew of technical issues that used to cause problems have been eliminated over the years.

mduell · Aug 10, 2009, 06:48 PM

Quantcast's estimates show a massive dropoff, from ~70k users/month in late 2006 to less than 20k now.

besson3c · Aug 10, 2009, 07:15 PM

mduell: how does Quantcast know about website demographics, such as the male/female breakdown? It looks like they get some of this information from ad providers, but what about people that block ads? Does this only skew the demographics part of this, or the raw data too?

voodoo · Aug 10, 2009, 10:26 PM

When I started posting here there was a new post in the Lounge every 20-40 seconds. We had Cipher and Maxelson.

I don't need a statistics report to know traffic here has decreased significantly since then. Shame really - but what can you do?

Time passes, people move on and MacNN forums just aren't very impressive when it comes to the Mac community compared to what they once were.

davecom · Aug 10, 2009, 10:31 PM

Without reading through whatever previous threads are out there - what was the conclusion about why the traffic dropped off so dramatically? Was it that people moved to another forum (specifically which)? I don't buy the 'less technical issues' argument since although there maybe less technical issues with Mac today than there were in the past, there are still other forums that are thriving and the total Mac install base has been growing.

0157988944 · Aug 10, 2009, 10:47 PM

Even within my relatively short time here it's definitely noticeable. It's interesting though that other similar forums haven't seen such a dropoff (measured by me entirely unscientifically.)

Maflynn · Aug 11, 2009, 09:25 AM

I've also noticed the drop off and in fact I rarely even visit the 'NN now. I go to other forums that have more threads and discussions and a better atmosphere about them.

I mentioned the lack of activity in another thread earlier this summer (in the lounge) to which I was rebuffed stating that it was summer, so of course there's a drop off (the other forums I go to have not noticed such a drop off).

I'm not sure why but one thought comes to me as to how people comport themselves in the lounge and the other areas. Any given lounge thread will almost certainly will get crapped on, or hijacked. Type MAC in a technical forum and watch the fur fly.

I'm sure I'll get flamed for saying this but 'NN has stopped being fun and informative, so much so it seems that many people have moved on to which I count myself. I'll still pop in from time to time but those visits are getting fewer and fewer.

Laminar · Aug 11, 2009, 09:59 AM

Dakar V · Aug 11, 2009, 10:07 AM

Originally Posted by mduell

Quantcast's estimates show a massive dropoff, from ~70k users/month in late 2006 to less than 20k now.

Since 2006, you say? Conspicuously the same time I started hitting my stride...

Laminar · Aug 11, 2009, 11:24 AM

Originally Posted by Dakar V

Since 2006, you say? Conspicuously the same time I started hitting my stride...

Remember, you're the #2 reason that this board is dying.

Dakar V · Aug 11, 2009, 11:34 AM

Ouch. Right in the post count.

besson3c · Aug 11, 2009, 02:55 PM

I actually prefer MacNN the way it is. I waste enough time as it is, I'm not particularly interested in MacNN growing in size, as it will probably result in me wasting even more time.

Plus, I'm alpha dog here, I'm not sure that we need people challenging me and ultimately failing.

Laminar · Aug 11, 2009, 05:16 PM

Yes, I'd say your online persona is as awesome as the movie was oscar-worthy.