Re: eBook Community's Twelfth Anniversary: State of The Group Message

Without a doubt all these other Forums/Blogs are going to impact. I
guess the question is whether it is worth changing or not.

Regular Forums can be a really great place - but ultimately they
become frustrating (for me at least). Blogs are...well blogs. With
both of these, could you really have the discussions like you do on a
listserv? Probably not.

mobileread has certainly created a great approach, with a mixture of
blog, forum and wiki. Probably still not right for the type of
discussions that happen here though.

Do you think perhaps there are too many lists and you are fracturing
the community too much? I know it's good to have specialised areas but
at what expense. Why not blend all these different list
(ebook-community, digital-text, etc,) this would allow people to get
involved (in a useful manner) in areas which they may not normally
consider.

Mike Cook

>
> Everyone,
> 
> A few days ago this group reached its 12th Anniversary. TeBC was
> started January 5, 1996 under the name "eBook-List".
> 
> Since that humble beginning, TeBC membership has grown (to now about
> 3000 registered subscribers), and well over 33,000 messages have been
> posted.
> 
> Thanks to everyone who has made this group a great success over the
> years!
> 
> On a more somber note, I notice that the number of messages posted to
> TeBC during 2007 was *significantly* lower than in prior years. Refer
> to the monthly posting chart at the TeBC home page:
> 
>    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ebook-community/
> 
> (In 2006, we had 2979 messages. In 2007 we had 1297, a drop of 56%)
> 
> I am unsure of the reasons why we see the major dropoff in 2007. There
> are a number of possible explanations. For example:
> 
> 1) The rise of blogs and new types of online forums have provided new
>    and spiffier outlets for people to express themselves.
> 
>    (Maybe the traditional "mailing list", a.k.a. "listserv" is
>    becoming too "old-fashioned" for many people to get excited about
>    any more.)
> 
> 2) Competition from other ebook-related discussion forums.
> 
>    (E.g., Mobileread has captured a significant chunk of the ebook
>    hardware discussion, so we don't see anywhere near as much
>    discussion on hardware as we used to.)
> 
> 3) This group is simply losing its relevance for reasons that I don't
>    understand, but others may. Maybe the ebook industry is finally
>    maturing and so there's less need for a forum like TeBC.
>    
> 
> Even though "metadiscussions" (discussions about the group) are
> usually discouraged, in this case I invite everyone to provide their
> views on why TeBC group discussion has significantly dropped the last
> year.
> 
> Is this something temporary, or a long-term trend?
> 
> And more importantly, how can we make TeBC more relevant to the ebook
> and digital publishing universe?
> 
> Should we consider a switch away from the traditional 'listserv' to a
> different type of forum? (E.g., blog-based.) Should we simply "merge"
> with another "new-type" forum?
> 
> Your frank insights are invited.
> 
> And of course, if you are interested in helping this group in any
> capacity, including a leadership position, let me know in private
> email.
> 
> It's always been my intent to build a group leader's team to oversee
> both the day-to-day operation and the evolution of this group to
> maintain relevance in the ebook and digital publication universe. Up
> to now it's mostly been run by me, with a little help from my friends
> (David Rothman and Kent Larsen, to name two.)
> 
> Thanks again to everyone for all your contributions to TeBC. TeBC is
> *your* group, so let's see how we can make this group relevant again.
> 
> Jon Noring
> TeBC founder and co-moderator
>




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