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Eater Launches Discussion Forums


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Source: Eater NY

Want to be involved in the growing universe of Eater? The time is now. Eater is hiring for a key full time position, Community Manager.

Eater's Community Manager will launch an exciting brand new initiative: discussion forums. For the first time ever, Eater readers will have the opportunity to discuss and debate topics outside of the article comment thread. The Community Manager will be charged with monitoring, moderating, and nurturing discussions as well as overseeing comments across Eater sites. The ideal candidate is an Eater devotee, a restaurant industry nerd, an excellent communicator, a heavy forum user, and ...

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This is interesting.

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I've been active in forums for probably about 10 years.  I learned SEO on them.  I've been active in some different topical forums over the years.  Once blogging got popular forums lost popularity.  One thing was bloggers focused on their own blogs and stopped contributing and visiting forums.  Some blogs took on the roles of forums.

But one thing forums do that is better is that they regularly keep moving topics to the top of the list and make them current.  Many users click on the newest posts to see what is being discussed now.  It could be a topic that was started years earlier, but somebody refreshed it, and it can drive current response and reaction.   Blogs tend not to do that.   Blogs tend to follow the pattern and discussion of its leader(s).  Forums are free flowing wherein the community decides what is active and current at any time.

I've never started or run a forum.  I've modded in one.  Its time consuming.  In any case among forums in which I've participated, Don spends dramatically more time in this one than did or do the other forum operators where I interacted.

It is very difficult to match Don's level of involvement, care, his knowledge, and affection for the community.  Whatever Eater manages to do on a corporate level I can't see it having anywhere's close to the personal touch Don puts to this forum.  In my experience at least, its exceptional.

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I've been active in forums for probably about 10 years.  I learned SEO on them.  I've been active in some different topical forums over the years.  Once blogging got popular forums lost popularity.  One thing was bloggers focused on their own blogs and stopped contributing and visiting forums.  Some blogs took on the roles of forums.

But one thing forums do that is better is that they regularly keep moving topics to the top of the list and make them current.  Many users click on the newest posts to see what is being discussed now.  It could be a topic that was started years earlier, but somebody refreshed it, and it can drive current response and reaction.   Blogs tend not to do that.   Blogs tend to follow the pattern and discussion of its leader(s).  Forums are free flowing wherein the community decides what is active and current at any time.

I've never started or run a forum.  I've modded in one.  Its time consuming.  In any case among forums in which I've participated, Don spends dramatically more time in this one than did or do the other forum operators where I interacted.

It is very difficult to match Don's level of involvement, care, his knowledge, and affection for the community.  Whatever Eater manages to do on a corporate level I can't see it having anywhere's close to the personal touch Don puts to this forum.  In my experience at least, its exceptional.

Thanks for your input, Dave. I've known all along that a blog simply cannot match a forum for certain things. As an example, count the number of comments in the blog entry that announces the forums.

I suspect Eater has known all along that they'd need a forum, but decided to invest their money in name recognition. This is not a bad strategy, and will solve the inherent problem of "where will we find our first participants?" Eater sees the value of Yelp, and is going to try and get a piece of the pie - it's Yelp they're after; not me.

Yelp is vacuous, and Eater's discussions will most likely reflect what they've been blogging (when I go to Eater.com right now, I see, in order, blog entries about TGIFridays, Matt Walsh telling Conan what he eats for breakfast, Marco Pierre White's book becoming a movie, and Taco Bell). If they're hiring one coordinator for all the discussion forums, it's going to be more work than the person can handle. One thing *I* know is just how much work is involved in running a forum *correctly*. However, "correctly" for donrockwell.com does not equate to "correctly" for Eater, who I suppose will be going for maximum volume. Eater is first-and-foremost a money-making venture, run by people looking to maximize returns on their investments. I suspect the difference between our forums will be the difference between a work of literature and a Danielle Steel novel, and there won't be any doubt as to which has more eyeballs. I say, "good for them."

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A couple of other observations.   On various topics there are forums with wide usage and forums with tighter more in depth usage, all on the same topics.   The ones with wider usage open up to more topics, are more monetized, get more traffic are less judging in a sense, less filled with expertise.   They are incredibly busier.   Traffic is profoundly greater.

The one's with a higher percentage of active experts tend to be smaller in traffic, but the level of expertise is easier to identify and find.  Different strokes for different folks.  The people who are active in these forums tend to self select.  I'm aware of active participants who have been in both types of forums.   They might do it for a variety of reasons, one being...they can pick up business or clients from the forums with less expertise.

I've had problems with yelp type sites, but I personally value them in a different sort of way.   On the one hand from a business perspective I get insights for our various smb's.  That is clearly different from regular usage, though.

On a regular usage basis I get value from things like Yelp.   For instance on a local basis I was thinking about a local restaurant.  There wasn't much commentary on DR.com.  I looked at yelp.  Total reviews were over 100.  I took a look at the grand range of rankings.  Total 4 & 5 star reviews were better than 3 times as great as total 1 & 2 star rankings.  hardly any 3 star rankings.

That was good enough for me; a large vote of the rating population with significant orientation toward the positive rather than the negative.   I scanned reviews.  They didn't inspire me to contribute or respond.  Of the negative's a fair percentage were related to the opening months of the restaurant.  I didn't scrutinize that trend, simply noted it.  On the positive side I noted one 5 star "giver" compared the restaurant to one  that is notably mediocre on every level!!!   LOL   It didn't dissuade me...but it also made me realize that the level of comparison on yelp and here for instance are dramatically different.  :D

At dr.com there is a passionate membership with much expertise.  I have no idea what will occur with eater.  I doubt it will be the same as dr.com.  

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Smart move - that would have been my recommendation as well.

 

If they're hiring one coordinator for all the discussion forums, it's going to be more work than the person can handle. One thing *I* know is just how much work is involved in running a forum *correctly*. 

You understand now, right?

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I noticed this when they did their website revamp. At that time, a few days later, the forums were pretty much empty. While I have not been back, I think part of the reason Don's forum here appeals to me is that the level of discourse is a bit higher. Truly it is a fine line at running a forum, balancing between members levels of honesty and one's personal vision of dialogue, but Don does a good job at it on a whole.

It would be nicer to have more members comments and observations but I guess that's the price of a more coherent discussion space.

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Here's a little secret that nobody in the media has ever mentioned:

If you go back 50 threads in our password-protected Washington, DC forum, you go back 8 days to May 5th, and we were offline much of this week.

If you go back 50 threads in *every Eater forum in the entire world*, you go back 38 days to April 5th.

I'm seeking venture capital, because I think we can be the educated version of Yelp - if you're interested in funding what could be one of the most successful restaurant websites in the world, get in touch with me. We have one employee (me), a couple dedicated volunteers, no debt, no expenses, and an eleven-year track record of integrity. 

Jul 29, 2015 - "Here's Why Yelp's Stock Is Tanking" [to under $2 billion in market cap] by Daniel Roberts on fortune.com

Does a company need to be worth multiple billions of dollars to be considered a success? I certainly don't think so, but our business models aren't all that different; it's just that I don't need a ton of money to be happy, I don't care about being mega-wealthy, and I value my reputation over everything else.

People don't realize all the "firsts" that this website has pioneered in terms of breaking new ground and setting present-day standards, and if I don't publish a list of them, nobody ever will - that's one thing I've learned: Ed McMahon isn't going to magically appear at my front door.

Investors, you have a diamond mine sitting right in front of you. I have an undergraduate degree in accounting, but I don't have the business acumen or the connections to make this work; that's where you need to come in. All a company needs to do is plug us into their existing website, and presto: Instant mega-content. There are two ways to drive a Bugatti: buying, and leasing.

Cheers,
Rocks

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I haven't checked in a long time, but it seems like Eater disconnected their forums from their main pages - the forums still exist, but I can't find any links to them.

(I take no pleasure in this - it isn't exactly as if I've been in a competitive state lately myself. I honest-to-goodness wanted to help them, and wrote the Editor-in-Chief and offered my help free-of-charge, but I never heard back ... I knew their forums couldn't succeed as they were presented, but I also knew they could have, if they had only done the right things.)

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