Did the world end and somebody forgot to tell me?

I think a lot of it is Apple's fault. I know. There's a lot of folks out there that say "Jay hates Apple... He's biased." Hear me out folks. Before the iPhone, when folks bought a phone, and didn't know how to use it, or had a mysterious problem, they had to turn to internet forums for their answers. Now they just go to the mall and talk to a "genius".

 

I mostly lurk and sometimes I have nothing to add. Maybe that's wrong of me, but I'd rather say nothing than to add to the confusion and chaos.

Also, some may have been put off by some bickering that went on a while back.

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I have been lurking as well. Haven't had much time for posting because of work and college. I would love to see WA get back to the activity it used to have.

 

Another factor may be the various social media sites. I am on Facebook frequently, running several pages and checking out what's going on there. I check things here several times, but don't post much. Haven't had any wireless issues to post about in a LONG time. Most of the activity I see comes from spammers, shillers, and other miscreants... :evillaugh

 

I highly doubt that the Apple Genius bar alone has caused the mass exodus of internet forum users and I am not saying this to defend Apple. Not everyone uses an iPhone. Many prefer Androids. I think it is more complex than that. Internet forums used to be a geek sensation years ago when there was only desktop computers. Now in my opinion, desktop computer usage is actually declining because of the fragmentation with competing devices. You used to get all your data access from a desktop computer. Now you get it from your tablet, your smartphone, even your TV, XBox, Wii, Roku, etc. That has cut down the audience for the desktop computer considerably and people are using their time doing other things online. Internet forums used to be the one-stop shop for all your grassroots-generated information online. Now, even that has fragmented because we have Facebook, Twitter, etc, that even as they are not a forum replacement, but they do steal the audience's attention from forums. Frankly speaking, I think the forum fever has just died down like a fashion trend when it goes out of style, and I don't think this only applies to Wireless Advisor. Same phenomena is happening to cable/satellite TV companies, as viewer traffic has been shifting to watching TV online. They are going the same route as the landline telephone. Times and technologies are changing, folks.


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The device/OS specific forums such as WP Central, Macrumors etc seem to be doing very well. To the extent that it is sometimes difficult to keep up with progress of a thread.

Perhaps we should specialize and find our own niche.
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I think all of your assessments so far are pretty much on the mark. Also there used to much be more involved in putting up a web site. So in addition to all the newish big guys (FB, twitter, apps) pulling for people's attention, there are so many more web sites on the topic (and all topics).

Me too, but they're not coming back.