- Jun 5, 2014
- 37,103
- 98,294
Founding Member
This comes about partially because I often wonder about the future of message boards. About five years ago, message boards were declared dead in favor of social media sites - the message board system was ancient technology that would soon go out like powdered wigs did. And to some extent, that's certainly true. It boggles my mind how many people want to gather into one little crowded Facebook page and try to actually have a discussion - it's impossible. Not only that, finding old data will simply never happen, when a searchable history is big part of what gives message boards their charm.
Personally, and I'm obviously biased, I think message boards are not only here to stay, they will continue to rebound and grow as people get weary of social media sites and come back to the system that is the easiest to read, follow, and search.
The onion in the ointment is that the newest generation has no experience with old-school message boards like this one, and instead have dealt with nothing but Facebook/Twitter/Reddit crap. In other words, message boards could potentially die out simply because the latest generations never give them a chance.
So I wondered if there were any younger people on this site. While the poll is going pretty much as expected, there's a bit more of a younger crowd than I anticipated, and that gives me a little hope for the future. What will the GCMB be like in 5 years? 10? 20? Impossible to know if it will be huge or even be here at all.
Personally, and I'm obviously biased, I think message boards are not only here to stay, they will continue to rebound and grow as people get weary of social media sites and come back to the system that is the easiest to read, follow, and search.
The onion in the ointment is that the newest generation has no experience with old-school message boards like this one, and instead have dealt with nothing but Facebook/Twitter/Reddit crap. In other words, message boards could potentially die out simply because the latest generations never give them a chance.
So I wondered if there were any younger people on this site. While the poll is going pretty much as expected, there's a bit more of a younger crowd than I anticipated, and that gives me a little hope for the future. What will the GCMB be like in 5 years? 10? 20? Impossible to know if it will be huge or even be here at all.