Biggie & it's popularity

Open ended questions.

All the current regulars: would you like it if more people posted?
What if those people were rather... different? What would your limits be?

Assuming you would like to revive it, what would you do to attempt this? I'm not after a "state of the internet" discussion, I mean, what would YOU actually do if your brief was to revive biggie and to do so you were given full control?
How would you promote it, make it worth visiting, make people post? Both to the community and to the site itself?

Just wondering really.

Of course I would like it, would encourage me to check back into the lounge more often. I remember when the front page was longer, and still would have a page worth of topics in a day, not the 3 weeks it is at the moment. Needs more integration with social media, does Biggie have an Iphone App? Also how about fixing up the links so that when you click on articles you can actually filter by type : D

It's a shame Itchy stopped posting, at least he brought some controversy to the boards

While usage has certainly declined the past couple of years (including my own), a fair bit of posting still happens, it's just limited to a few threads at a time.

Each message board is different - some have lots of short threads which fall off the main page quickly; some have the same epic threads on the front page every day and people just continually post in those; whereas biggie, I think falls in the middle. The main page has only a few new threads each day, but quite a few daily posts within each thread. Recently Biggie is people all discussing a few topics each day, rather than different people each posting to their own topic.

And, lots of big posters from past years have moved overseas, which puts them out of biggie's sphere of influence.

The best way to get new people onboard is just to talk about it when out at gigs. I recently met a couple of awesome people who are on here, but biggie never came up at all. However, we did talk about facebook and twitter quite a bit.

I'm still here!

Still failing!!! you haven't been to visit... with summer coming up there shall be beers to be consumed good sir, and the small man child is currently the perfect height for resting beers on his head

Unfortunately the youth of today have little interest in message boards (compared to 10 years ago) when the interaction was instigated largely around that which Facebook and co now cover. People interact with their mates on FB when it comes to events and nightlife. They would rather do that than post messages and topics to randoms in a forum...

There is a whole raft of changes in the online environment and I could rattle off an essay but Smiley asked us not to do that.

Other major considerations are that online advertising has also changed. Here I am talking about agency advertising. Pair that with the fact we have just been through a solid recession(and still in it really) = no budget for anything. Loads of things I would love to do but cannot unfortunately.

Nearly every niche site publisher I know has had to 'change their plans drastically' in the last 2 years. IE it is no longer their full time job and many have just moved on totally.

FYI the site itself still gets good traffic when it comes to unique visitors. Its the forum that has suffered when it comes to activity and that has happened over the last 5 years as old members dropped off and new scene people showed little interest in the actual forum.

Check out the sign ups. Just as strong as ever.
And that's with me running things in my spare time and making nothing off this at all right now. Its basically a time drain but I love the site. And we have wonderful crew like the photogs, Nova, Leonardo and Hardhouse above that keep things moving along nicely. Not to mention the remaining group of us on here that keep interesting topics going 10+ years down the track!!...

How popular is biggie's fb page mike?

6,584
like this

Pretty impressive compared to the social media standing of similar websites to this one.. Leonardo has been doing great things with that!

its a number, means fuck all really unless you're a "social media" expert in which case please kill yourself

How about not removing posts when the cry babies throw their toys out of the cot.

Plenty of other forums/message boards going strong still, don't really buy into this 'It's Facebook and Twitter's fault".

Attitudes of people running the site and/or closely associated with it may need to change. Look at that thread from a while back where thechad/andrew was spouting off that this site didn't need old jaded cunts or people that had contributed for years.....

That probably fucked a fair few people off

Fix the bugs/new bugs/ issues and by fix I mean fix- even if more posters are enlisted to assist with this.

And if a weird cunt poster is rubbing multiple people up and weirding them out, do something about it

no bullying - especially of new posters

winding people up, having a laugh at someone else's expense (within reason) and passionate debates are all good - especially amongst those of us who've been here a while and as such 'characters' are known

Its a small factor in the larger scheme of things. He hasn't been around much for well over a year maybe two and no techniques of getting new people to post work. Younger people are simply not interested.You don't have to buy into it. Its a fact and its right in front of those that want to see it.

The forums were also declining before he was even around.

Why talk with randoms on the forums when it comes to events and nightlife and the social side of things when you have all your mates on FB.

Loads of the people that still remain here will back me up when it comes to forums. And when it comes to those which now largely have been over taken by the core of Facebook.

What is Facebooks core for many? Events, photos and interaction around those. It has replaced much of what people used to do on this forum.

It is always good to have someone to blame though!

Even inthemix has taken a massive hit in activity and they have a much larger critical mass. Take a look at the small niche nightlife forums that were once buzzing. They are also now dead. People do that on FB.

The stats clearly show a steady decrease over the last 5 years with very few new members posting in the forum. Most of those that post now were people from 5 plus years ago.

If a weirdo is pissing people off email me...

the forums that are doing well all have strong communities - and even those are few and far between in my experience, older people like forums...

that said the lounge can still be a great hangout same days

just ban lazy hound and all will be fine

^^ and that is called Irony

LOL

FYI - anyone interested in contributing in some little way drop me a line... could be content, could be photos or something related to dev.

But most of you are already contributing enough already via the forum and have done for years!

I WOULD!!
If possible I'd love to do like a product review kind of thing.. where it be a new top/shoes or maybe food..

Does anyone think I'd be good at that..(nb: only answer if you think yes)

Product review: new top
"Cool colour, makes my boobs look good. 7/10"

that could work with the right photos

course in the spirit of community and interaction one would like the option of providing the rating

Sure I’m happy to get my boobs out for the good of the popularity of Biggie though that could get boring pretty quickly

Oh well, we may as well find out

I could write scathing-as-fuck film reviews :>

do the forum crew read the rest of the site?

I know I don't

I look at photos, but virtually never read articles

This is a benefit of message boards that's often overlooked I think. FB is great for having a random chat to your group of mates, but there's not a lot of serious discussion happening on there. Message boards are more anonymous and you get to discuss things with people you may not know, and as they're outside of your circle of friends, they could have a differing viewpoints to yourself.

I still think message boards are very relevant. Just not so much for social gatherings anymore.

I'll be the judge of that. kris@breakbeat.co.nz

love this idea!

Anyway you can contribute I am keen... eg poker tips or something random by Yak

QT - i can sort some for you to review if you like...

QT I know your boobs could save Biggie. Pics please.

good point spike - I've been here for years but have met and know very few biggies as thats never been my intent nor interest in being here

the day I met KrisB and found him to be a 12 year old girl from st marys bay was disappointment enough, to find yaksha is actually a council vending machine would kill me

Mad bants

Basically I would focus on getting more hot sluts involved.

on that note, how many women actively use this board? 4-5? qtraro, just, miss minx, some others I can't recall right now? heh it used to be pretty equal on here from memory...

Yeah girls need to know...a site to get good advice and read intelligent banter from a bunch of choice sexy guys.....but yeah I didnt post for ages and then kinda do....heh.

I'd welcome new people. The only criteria I have is the ability to speak (write) proper english like a grown up adult, and not be a dribbling moron. Anyone who can't communicate properly is a waste of time.

Apart from the various bugs we've covered ad nauseum, a killer these days is total lack of any smartphone or tablet friendly stylesheets. (And yes, I think you need to do something different for both imo)

get ya cawk out, geeeeet ya cawk oot. GIT YA CAWK OOT FER DA LASSES!!!!

Yeah working for mobile platforms would be nice...

Wimmin folk are notoriously fickle though

ya need a QR code - in fact everyone does

its the fucking future

Not true.. forums are definitely on the decline / way out across the board... they're just archaic "pre-social networking" relics of the internet now. People do all their online socialising/conversations elsewhere now (predominantly Facebook).

Biggie could be playing more in the social space for sure. Ideally all the forum discussions / conversations would be taking place in Facebook itself and Biggie would live only as a photo/entertainment site. Even some more functionality / plugins to Facebook/Twitter etc would be a good start.

not everyone wants to talk on facebook

fuck that, facebook is for stalking

I dropped off posting, even in Sport's forums. Not because I don't want to, but simply don't have the time. But I check in and read couple of threads at least, on daily basis. It's a habit more than anything else.

used to engage in pseudo-intellectual posturing on here on a frequent basis, but really can'y be bothered with that these days - prefer light superficial banter now, preferably with homoerotic overtones

agreed! more of this sort of carry on please

I just contributed to this in the musical instruments thread.

thanks - must check it out then

I agree that on the whole forums are on the decline, but this triathlon forum I go on, slowtwitch.com is still going really strong. Prob around 50 plus new threads per day (mainly about boring shit like 'critique my bike position', functional threshold and training with power - that kinda shit). It is prob the biggest triathlon website in the world though.

I remember msn and yahoo used to be huge, they have def declined...

yeah...biggie is meant to be a light distraction from work, you shouldn't need to research replies (like many people on here seem to do through google hah)

Yep, would like more people posting obviously. I'd like to be more drowned out for a start.

While social networking might eat into the forum and the rest of the site in a big way, I don't think that means it can't be countered. It's just... hard.
I know some of these things are on the wish list already:
• Reduce number of forums, add them all to the main menu.
• fb likes/g+/tweets to individual posts.
• Voting view, likes (&dislikes;?) within biggie, and that info displayed where the sig would be.
• Perhaps allow all that crud we hate like signatures and customisations, but allow a classic theme to switch it off.
• All forums can be viewed with a check box widget.
• Social integration with photos and articles.
• Allow login through 3rd party and account linking and easier registration overall along with easier password recovery and session control.
• Integrate the rest of the site with the forums: you have articles, if you are in forum view, they show up as posts and people can comment. If you are actually browsing articles, it has comments, and clicking there takes you to the thread. Seamlessly.
• Perhaps do something similar with photos, Not quite sure how to do it in an acceptable way yet but I personally think it's worth working out.
• Make it work on other devices with CSS etc.

But yeah, all theoretical if the resources aren't there really I know...
What's the site written in btw?

Allow commenting on photos ldo

THIS. A lot of smart ass cunts on this site, should put it to good use.

Yeah there's a football forum I frequent that is kind of like Biggie in that it has a loose pretence of football as biggie does to the dance scene but most of the topics are unrelated. Topics can disappear from the 1st page in seconds at peak times, it has great bants and some pretty well known merks in the UK, but even still people lament for how it was although as much about a media giant owning the site now and the rules around what we could do on the boards changing. It seems to me that more anonymous boards (SA for example, sure you have small groups in areas who know each other but on the whole the size of it means no one would know more than 1% of regular posters personally) are the ones still going fairly well as the cliquey ones have moved to Facebook where people can directly talk to their friends.

Exactly Jono

This. Best, easiest way to increase usage, or at least the perception of usage. Just have one forum - the lounge - and *everything* goes in here. When people see "last post, one month ago" they figure no one reads that forum so it's not worth posting in. But if everything moves to the lounge, it will at least appear like a much more active forum, and that will encourage people to post because there's a better chance of getting replies and views.


Could also use more enthusiasm on the music side. Have someone post a thread for each big upcoming gig so people can discuss beforehand, then put a link to the thread in the photos section afterward. Allowing comments on photos is also a great idea. Sometimes all it takes is having an existing thread to get people discussing a gig.

That's what I mean by integrating the rest of the site with the forums. Imagine if all content was up for discussion instead of being some separate part of the site. Hitting back on a gig guide element with discussion or some editorial or review takes them back to the gig guide main (or reviews main) but they actually participated in a discussion in the forum.

Also caption under photos "x comments". Remember the like/etc buttons that link to social networks.

MikeM's not going to implement any of those changes,

simple fact is - for the forum(s) do be remotely interesting its up to US to post

He won't implement any of that because it takes resources that are simply not available to do it, and we are all aware of that.

But I don't believe it's up to a smaller user base to some how make it interesting. I'm just trying to generate ideas, good and bad and done before even just to see what we can come up with, and how that fits into a picture of what the web is today, to see how biggie can mitigate some of it's effects.

Perhaps Jono has a really good point (I feel a little bit responsible that is the case), so the idea is to create a completely new community that caters to today's expectations of a website community.

So many shitty forums around that do quite well, so there is no reason biggie can't as I think it's quite superior in a few ways.

Smiley. I agree with the comments on articles and events etc... I have mentioned that over the last year. I would love to have it so that people can comment under articles and events/photos and then this also creates a thread in the lounge or similar. This means all discussion goes in one place but it is also shown under the article or event. This could then feed people into the discussion area and encourage discussion in general by those that do not visit the forum.

Who knows, I might actually be able to do it. But I need to have a couple other more vital things fixed first. I would really like to implement that.

Otari - yup I want to compress them.