The usefulness of a gambling forum?

[Renee]

Face to face?

You mean actually SPEAKING to another human...... in the same room....? wow what a concept.

Sheesh, next thing you know Renee is gonna suggest we actually be social......lol

I prefer actually talking with others too, I think it is sad to see to people sitting side-by-side and texting each other rather than actually speaking, and yet, between facebook and text messaging, that is what the new social media is attempting to teach people that it is better to communicate that way than talk.

Rick
Universal4

Yes I love being social!

I'm pretty sure my ex-partners have all left me because I don't shut up actually. And if I don't talk to people during the day, I talk in my sleep.

I need a job that pays me to talk. I'd be rich!

[Britton]

If you were thinking of starting a new forum on your website would you wait until the site has got x amount of visitors each month before launching it or would you go ahead regardless of traffic volumes and try to use it to make the site grow? If the former, how many visitors per month?

Thanks. Great thread by the way!

[Maikel_Fruity]

I agree that forums are losing it to the facebooks and twitters of this world. However, I think specific forums, like this one, are still very helpful and a big asset to the industry. Simply because all the info that is posted here. It is a quick way to target a specific group of people. And I know that you also can target a specific group with a facebook group, but I don't want to be in 100+ groups on facebook.
The biggest difference between a forum and, for instance, facebook, is that on a forum it is way easier to find specific information. Try to find a post on facebook, that was posted 2 or 3 months ago, you are scrolling down for ages.

[TheGooner]

Forums and their formats are very 1990's to 2000's. They are very much fixed format. But they are primarily text based - and THAT lack of flexibility and lack of innovation mean that they are struggling to compete for general appeal with the more mainstream forms of social media like Facebook, Twitter et.al. These places make it easy to share broader pictorial media - quick - easy - public - popular.

I think that it is a REAL struggle to successfully start a forum today and attract a broad spectrum of users. The forums that still exist and are active are specialist forums with industry knowledge that built their active user base prior to (say) 2010.

My proof to that statement would be - take a look at the join date of the participants in the next 5 threads you read on site - and I would wager that more than 50% of the statements are posted by members who joined 2010 or earlier ... so to have a good forum today- you needed to get it going at least 5 years ago.

Finally, I'd also state that a good forum contains a a level of detail and information way above that which is found in the more public social media - which is often trite and shallow link bait, likes, and pictures of food/pets. A good forum can challenge you and make you think - and that's often a bit difficult for many of today's internet users.

So to the OP question - Is a gambling forum useful?
A/ Yes - but it's exceptionally unlikely that you will be able to create one and get enough active intelligent contributors to make it succeed.

[Miles_FTA]

Yes I love being social!

I'm pretty sure my ex-partners have all left me because I don't shut up actually. And if I don't talk to people during the day, I talk in my sleep.

I need a job that pays me to talk. I'd be rich!

Really .. You always seem so QT when your around at conferences but maybe that's because i am too shy to actually have more than a 5 minute conversation with you lol ..

[Casino-Matt]

We started a forum when the site first launched. Actually two forums, one for poker staking which is still going strong and which we actually sold off to concentrate on Slots Guide.
The other forum fell to pieces. It took a hell of a lot of work to get going and just as it was taking off, we got hit by some spam scam system which overnight caused 100 hours worth of work to clean up. That coupled with the day to day moderating of normal spammers... we decided to simply dump the forum altogether.

I much prefer forums to Facebook groups or Twitter. Much easier to navigate and keep track of. Much more informative. Easier to target questions or get opinions. Just a damn shame they are slowly dying and a shame they are so hard to run.

[academia]

Our community is based on a forum. Our websites started after 2010.
Our Brazilian website has abou one year. What I see is my community growing.

You can not just offer a forum, you should offer information and a product that keeps users coming back.
People with some knowledge usually stop opening new topics on foruns but from time to time they help to answer questions.
If you can keep them on your site, they will take a look to your forum and help you.
If they have a question they don´t know the answer they will go to the forum.
On this industry you don´t find the experts on facebook or twitter. Or at least, the experts won´t have the time to answer you.
On foruns there are always someone reading.

We have just opened a new forum in english and in one year the success will be the same as in the other websites. Why? Members will visit the site each and everyday. And eventually, from the thousands of experts of our community, there are always some that will help the starters.

[FruityJelena]

Did anybody mention his/her favourite affiliate, gambling forum (not this one) ?

[MegaFreeChips]

Creating a Slack channel for GPWA might be an awesome idea.
This will allow real-time discussions to take place.