Yeap, actually, even if a lot of forum admins are complaining (with rights) that the facebook mania made their members vanish, there are some good points to it…

1. A lot more people are now aware that communities, groups and discussions are fun on the internet. They know them from facebook, it’s not time for you to bring them to your site with a better feeling!
2. A lot of people who never touched a keyboard in the past are now using their computer on a daily basis, which let you touch a larger pool of possible members.
3. With all the changes that occured on facebook in the last two years, people are now aware of unstable sites that change their designs and features everyday… which is good. Now, people are able to adjust, they are more flexible on changes, and they are now aware that even if something change, they can continue to live on the site instead of hide in the closet!
4. People are now aware that the look is not « that » important… compare to facebook and twitter, and ask yourself if you really need to invest thousands of dollars on the design of your site to keep people visiting your site!
5. Complex features? nah…. just good ones that works. There was way too much bugs on facebook lately, people want things that work, not things that bling and shine… eye-candy stuff is good when you have nothing else to suggest!

…

these are some of the reasons why your forum/community can survive and rise from the dead. here at nexialys.net we suggest to have solid, stable and not-too-fancy featurettes added to your site to really answer your visitors needs, based on the goal of your site. that’s a good situation, as you will not have to create a circus to bring people on your site, you just have to advertise… and be prepared!

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