Is social networking sites killing forums?

I have had quite a few forums over the years, I sold my largest forum about 4 years ago, I got bored of not having a forum so I revived one of my long abandoned forums.
I found out that getting members (especially intelligent one that don't spam) is quite difficult despite using all the techniques that once worked for me in the past.

I came to the conclusion that far less people use forum this days when compared with the hey days of forum a few years ago, this I assume is due to the popularity of Facebook and other social networking sites which were not quite that popular back in the days when my forum was very busy.

Does anyone else share my conclusion or I am i backing up the wrong tree?

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According to the latest buzz in the tech world news, Emails don't seem to have a great future.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg raised many eyebrows when he declared the death of emails last month. But it seems the young entrepreneur was right.
Statistics from market researchers comScore have revealed that millions of Britons led by the under-25s are ditching the cumbersome tool for social networking sites.
The three most popular services in the Yahoo! Mail, Gmail and Hotmail have seen a consistent fall in the number of people visiting their sites.
Do you still favor emails? Shoot thy opinion.

Email is here to stay, even the good old fashion snail mail is far from dead yet. I personally do not have a Facebook page and have no desire to have one, I communicate with good old email.

you raised the valid question...........its right social media attracts people more than forums...the best answer you can get is from the figures

It's possible but not entirely. Forums have particular niches of their own and I just can't see how social networking can severely affect their existence.

I voted "Perhaps". It's very possible because back when facebook was nothing, forums would always stand out. Now, all these social media have similar boards that replace the usual forums.

I do not really know about that.  The social networks are quite popular and I spend my fair share on them but I also love forums as well and spend more time at forums than social sites.

Not really... forums are focussed on specific subjects whereas social network sites are about everything...

It might but not quite. Forums tackle varieties of discussion about specific topic. It also somehow shows a tangible and sensible way of communicating with people. While the Facebook, you can talk anything another the sun without specification of topics. It's like this, Forums are more of the articulate type while Facebook is more of the laid back one. So I don't think that this will kill the forum industry.

I agree because both have different type as well as techniques are being employed. if someone have to know something about its question he can move to forums to get answer.

Facebook sometimes provide leisure and entertainment. While in forums, it provides you answers on the questions given. At most times, it is a process of exchanging ideas. It somehow fills the knowledge you fail to acquire from previous your previous study.

Yes, i agree that Forums are for specific reasons whereas social networking websites are for everything. if someone have questions about anything he will definitely move towards forums to ask not to social networking websites.

no. forums are better than social network.

Yeah, social bookmarking sites are indeed very popular these days for personal and professional reasons both. Social networking sites like Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter can bring large amount of traffic and leads.

I do for this joining social network sites.

No,I think social networking sites are a good way to get traffics.

Hi, both are good and different in function, Social networking and bookmarking sites used to drive traffic, on the other hand forums are the good way to build links.. 

Simply, no they aren't killing sites, infact they're helping them with their recommendations. If people didn't have them, you wouldn't get as much traffic as you do.

I don't think so. Let's be honest, people love to chat about different things all the time. Most social networks are not a "chat" but more of just sharing information.

Both social media and forums will always be bonded together. Right now I can get this info over to my social media space at a click of a button. Both are very valuable to have in getting information to others quickly. They scratch each others back.

I don't think so because social networking sites are good for the promotion but not for the links.forums is the platform where you can discuss anything but in social networking sites you only focus on your business topic.

I totally agree on that. forums are far from dying simply because they are more specific on particular topic when social websites are about everything and nothing.

i agree that social networking can get that high result

i agree that social networking can get that high result

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I don't think forums in general are dying off, but the demographics are shifting. If there are two forums on the same topic, people are more likely to register for the one that is more active.

 I don't think forums in general are dying off, but the demographics are shifting. If there are two forums on the same topic, people are more likely to register for the one that is more active. Over the past many years I think this has caused most of the forum going population to shift from many sites of generally equal size to one ballooning site. In the starcraft community at least, why register on blizzforums or starcraft.org forums when you can just register on teamliquid and have a much larger community.