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At 5:17 PM -0500 8/21/98, kgreenbaum@tribune.com wrote:

>
>     Why do you suppose web message boards don't do so well? Haven't we
>     advanced in the past couple of years that the enough that the
>     interactivity AOL users are accustomed to might have permeated the web
>     audience a bit more?


It's partly a software issue.  The AOL boards are quite easy to use.

There's also still an element of the AOL culture (a large element, I
suspect) that never ventures beyond AOL.

AOL members who are loyal feel like they are part of a community.

I see mixed success in the RV niche with Web discussion forums.  On my
sites, my forums tend to be pretty quiet.  Most of my members prefer e-mail
discussions and all of my e-mail lists are quite active, which is why I now
intergrate them all with Web forums as well.  But on other sites (speaking
strictly of RV sites), where they don't have the e-mail option, the message
board seem to be doing quite well.  Some of them are very, very active.

These are the mistakes I see newspapers make:

1) They give users too many options.  They load up a bunch of discussions,
all of them empty and they tend to stay empty cause no body wants to be the
first to post.

2) They don't seed the discussions with staff members and community members
who post and get the flow going.

3) They don't build a sense of community around their boards, doing the
things that will help people feel like they are joining an active group of
people, so that they will want to return.

4) They forget that most people don't want to discuss the things that
journalists think they should discuss, so news staffs introduce topics that
most people don't care to talk about.  Good topics are hobbies and sports,
not news, unless you are a national news site and you have issues such as
Lewinsky and Clinton to talk about -- that will rarely work, I believe, on
the local level, unless done right and well.

So ... keep it simple (only one or two topics to start), seed posts, build
community, pick the right topics.

Happy trails,
H.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Howard Owens // mailto:howard@rvclub.com
The RV Club // http://www.rvclub.com/
President // #L-CHAR-00001
ICQ# // 5400300
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