The value of Jemsite is decades of valuable information and discussion, if you google an issue relating to these guitars then a Jemsite thread pops up. That said the RG/Jem facebook group is massive and very active, someone posts a problem on there and within minutes they will have a bunch of solutions, some of them pointing to Ibanezrules or Jemsite but usually in the form of freeflowing discussion. Of course as mentioned it's gone as quickly as it came, into the abyss.

This feeds into another thought I had. Why not just embrace FB? The whole "if you can't beat 'em join 'em" idea. What about some kind of partnership? Would have to be with the Ibanez RG Series Fans one for obvious reasons. There are a bunch of ex-Jemsite people there who recognize the value of this forum and realize the limitations of Facebook as an information platform. Rather than making what is probably a futile effort to win back the everyday conversations, why not focus on making this THE central resource for Ibanez guitar info. To that point Keith Harrison's Wiki page should also be embraced here.

In my mind the days of one source for all your needs are past. It's more about specialization in some area. For Jemsite to thrive, it should focus on being the best at something.

Although it's not AFAIK about "beating" anyone I get what you're saying & will present it to VS. I'm not sure of their social media strategy nor Keebali's prior. To me Instagram is a very obvious platform since it's less obnoxious/intrusive/divisive and gets far more engagement visually (also allowing for comments). It's a matter of what is the goal that's certainly not for me to say.

the Ibanez wikia? how so... what do you recommend?

Agree for sure. You could debate what "thrive" means but...

I only used "beating" in the context of the old saying I quoted. It was more of a comment on the outsize role social media has come to play. I feel that forums still have an important role to play and perhaps the best solution is more of a partnership with social media? The problem I think with Instagram is that it's inherently an individual thing. There is no way to make an interactive group there like you can on FB.
Not sure how to implement it but it seems like a natural partnership. He's the best at what he does, which is cataloging models of Ibanez guitars. But what he doesn't provide is any discussion, advice, tech support, etc. It seems silly to try and reinvent the work he's done rather than just direct traffic there. Similarly he would direct traffic here for all the things his site is not set up to do.
Well I don't think that it will ever mean what it did in the days before the rise of social media. So I think you'd have to define it in a way that is relevant to today, which is sort of what I'm attempting to do. In the business I'm in, I see this all the time with companies where their core technology loses much of its relevance. Usually what happens is they retrench and focus on the ways their solution still resonates and then work on excelling at that.

^ more good feedback thx. I'm just considering all POV with no skin in the game.... I get the facebook (private) group thing including convenience, simplicity, networkability & discoverability. Totally.

But I honestly ask why would VS want to shift traffic/info (searchable text) over to FB instead of here (where it owns the content & can generate revenue to sustain business rather than hand ad $ to FB)? If they own - lets use a random round number - 7000 communities/sites/forums why would they want to do that in scale either?

I'm honestly curious.

I fully get it that FB/Social drives possible SALES & promotion of actual products to sell. What is JEMSITE selling? I've felt social media could improve Jemsite DISCOVERABILITY & engagement... however it's actually rather well covered by search/siri/etc. no? Grant it, I'm not aware how FB groups can be directly monetized which I believe the site owners would want no?

Actually, I do not see a problem here. Generally all forums have it to itself that various people with different resources of knowledge write here and sometimes it may turn into a trash. Forum is not database. Although on the other hand I have no problem searching for topics that interest me. The principle of professional forums is that inappropriate posts are removed or moved, topics with answers closed and repeated questions sent back to the search engine. Of course, I realize this means a lot of moderation. I'm not sure how much this forum is professional and how much discussionable. I'm sure there is a lot of knowledge here.

>I do not really understand why I should use facebok to search if I have google? Maybe I'm old fashioned!?


J.

I'm certain who VS is? Based on context I'm assuming the Jemsite is owned by some entity that owns a whole bunch of forums?

So I wasn't looking at this as a sort of slippery slope that could infect a whole range of communities. I was treating Jemsite as a discrete entity. The way I approached it that it costs a certain amount of money per month to host the forum and allocate a certain amount of bandwidth on the servers. As traffic to the forum drops, the revenue it generates drops. How low does it need to drop before the site is in the red? And if the site is in the red, what is the motivation to keep it going? I think we're all in agreement that traffic has really dropped off here. But what seems more important than that is, is the forum attracting and retaining new members? Or is it basically like the Elks Lodge with a few old dudes sitting around complaining about stuff? My worry is that it's much more of the latter, which should be extremely concerning.

Back to FB, what I see there is that people try to use it like a forum but it isn't really good at that. So what I'm asking is would it bear the most fruit to focus on improving the forum in the areas where FB groups are lacking? My assumption is that focusing on improving the discussion ultimately won't work. It will just be the same old guys who were fine with the old format anyway. So returning to your original question about why would the owners want to point outside their ecosystem, I think the answer is that you have to go where your customers are. You would be betting that any loss you'd have from that would be offset by traffic coming back for the compelling features you're offering.

Yes VerticalScope as announced a while back here: http://www.jemsite.com/forums/f10/an...rs-138097.html

This nails it in the context of someone/group owning one specific site and trying to grow & make it viable & profitable/sustainable (not a hobby/write-off). I am not speaking for anyone but myself here. But my assumption is there are many metrics (goog analytics & more) measured against hundreds of communities by VS. As a result "new posts" is but just one and it's never been vocalized as something to prioritize or consider. Niche guitar communities are tricky to monetize as the demographic is limiting. In bulk/collectively like with VS it works via the collective ad impressions.

Ok i'm still following but don't want to read into your answer. Can you explain a little clearer "go where your customers are"? Thx.

Yes there are