It Takes More Than vBulletin

At around 11pm last night, I discovered that dedicated server providers' user forums don't seem to be very popular online hangouts. Take a look at the stats:

• Burst.net forum: 0 member online
• EV1Servers forum: 10 members online
• FastServers forum: 0 member online
• LayeredTech forum: 1 member online
• ServerBeach forum: 2 members online
• SuperbServers forum: 0 member online
• ThePlanet forum: 3 members online

Most of these companies will tell you that they serve four primary constituencies: resellers, developers, gamers and small businesses. Members of each group have much in common with one another; why haven't more active communities evolved around them?

I think the vBulletin forum software and its ilk are partly to blame. They support only two modes of interaction: public discussion threads and private messages. And they offer limited shelf space for discussion topics. Each bulletin board features a finite number of top-level forums, and each forum displays only so many recent threads per page.

Given this format, users who wish to discuss niche topics might be reluctant to clutter public forums with threads that are unlikely to attract wide interest. And unfortunately, they don't have the option of forming special interest groups within a forum's membership.

In addition to the not-so-flexible either/or choice vBulletin (and phpbb and Simple Machines) imposes between public posts and 1-on-1 messaging, its user profiles are not terribly social-networking friendly.  The only interesting data they contain are each user's participation  in past threads. For the most part, these discussions have long since dropped off the front page and no longer receive any attention.

In an era when Microsoft calls Live its highest priority initiative, and Red Hat has just unveiled  the Mugshot social networking platform, I'm not sure vBulletin is an adequate industry standard any more.  Maybe it's time that web hosting providers seek out new community-building tools.

The companies I listed above collectively serve tens - if not hundreds - of thousands of customers. In addition to technology solutions, web hosting providers are in a position to offer so much more. I'm envisioning tools like Amazon's Purchase Circles, where users can learn about what hardware/software configurations businesses like theirs have deployed. Or  eBay Wiki, where experts on the most obscure topics can share their knowledge. MySpace-type profiles would be cool, too; users could list past projects, share favorite development tools, trade re-usable templates/graphics/code modules and rate interactions with one another.

The possibilities are endless, and the time to move forward is ASAP. Fast-acting web hosting providers have an opportunity to escape the downward spiral of price competition and build long-lasting, super-sticky customer relationships. I hope some of them take advantage of it.

PS - In this review of Chowhound, PostBubble also complains about the thread-centric rather than user-centric forum format:

The primary problem is that it’s “forum” based and you see the latest thing up on top whether it’s coffee, Chinese food, or eggs. This just didn’t click with me the right way because when I’m looking for food I’m looking for something specific. A community-based site is the right idea but there has to be some element that meets community halfway. I like hearing what other people think and their recommendations are golden however if I’m not looking for coffee I’m not looking for coffee. I need something that gives me the community value but with the information I actually need.

Comments

[Richard Yoo]

I always felt that it was less of what you are pointing out, and more of how SB customers don't actually like "hanging out" online. It was suprising how many of our customers wanted to just talk on the phone, rather than via email, chat, or even the forums.

I think that its easy for us to assume that everyone whats to be online, but I think that still not true for the mass majority of consumers out there.

[Kevin Laude]

Mr. Yoo, I disagree. A few of my forum's users appear to enjoy hanging out on our forums. Some relationships have formed amongst them, and now our regulars are frequent contributors and hang out in an IRC channel they created for forumgoers like themselves. Its true that there are some who want to get in, ask their question, and get out. I don't really have a problem with that. I won't force them to participate. But the ones that see that we have a community of insightful staff and customers tend to stay to help out. It really is an amazing thing.

When you start out a community you need to put a good portion of your time into running it, enganging in conversation, and making sure everyone's happy. Back when The Planet's forums started up (about 3 years ago) I was responsible for roughly 15% of the posts there. Nowadays our community has grown so large that I'm about 4% of all posts, and most of the time when I see a question asked the users themselves reply back before I or another staff member can answer them. I take that to mean our forums are a success.

Isabel does raise a good point though. There's certianly room for improvement where we're concerned. Some of it stems from our choice of software (a modified version of phpBB in our case). Some of it stems from our overall goal of having a user contributable forum. My goal for our forums is our customers helping each other and a convenient way to make announcements. I also think that it says alot about us as a company if we can field a complaint on our forums and turn a frown upsidedown in public. These goals don't include building communities, but maybe they should. Who knows. PhpBB is open source, and I may be able to write in a few things that do what's described in this article. While we're wishing maybe they can find a cure for our need for sleep or find a way to add 10 hours to the day. :)

Gah, I'm rambling. I suppose this article got me thinking. Time to brainstorm our forums a little. :)

Kevin Laude
forums.theplanet.com administrator