Is the B&N Forum Dying?

[orb9220]

Just wondering as been with B&N forum since the first nook ereader. There was always many threads to read,help out in or gain new info. Could come 2-3 times a day morning noon or night. And have many threads to read.

Now seems like past couple of months a ghost town. Never been gone 6-8 hrs. and come back and see only 1-5 total number of posts in Nook tablet & nook color combined before and only a smattering in other sub-forums.

What's up with that? I mean Nook tablets,Nook Color NST and NST with glowlight still have strong sales? that there would be a lot more activity?

Thanks not whining just curious.

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[keriflur]

I think, honestly, that there are too many forums.  I haven't put a lot of thought into it, frankly, but when they switched from having two e-ink nook forums and two or three color nook forums to having 15+ device forums, everything seem to slow down.  Then they closed a bunch of forums, and opened some more, then closed those.... you get the idea.

Also, I have no idea how to find these forums without a direct link anymore.  I'd bet that's part of it also.

It's sad, but the only time we really have a lot of activity is when there's a... well, I won't say it in case one appears.

[TnTexas]

I think Keriflur hit the proverbial nail on its head. (Anyone but me ever feel sorry for tha poor nail?) Too many sub-forums and no prominent, easily-found link are probably a huge part of the problem. The brouhaha over the Tablet didn't help the situation either.

[Sun_Cat]

Yup. What would be so wrong with something like this:

• Nook General Discussion
• Nook Apps for Tablet and Color
• Tech Support for Tablet and Color
• Tech Support for NST and NSTGL

And for gosh sake bring back an issue reporting board and a suggestions board. It's been months. Those were usually lively.

On another note, the most active board by far is the Mystery book club, which has a very active, engaged moderator (shout out to Becke). What happened to all the mods? On the Nook and community boards we get an occasional fly-by from Alex, and that's about it. I think active mods would make a very big difference.

[Sun_Cat]

And another thing, why even bother to add the new Ask B&N board, call it "Our worry free Q&A monitored by BN, its staff, and our resident community experts," and then after a week or so of engagement have all B&N representatives essentially stop posting there? That's just plain demoralizing and discouraging.

The feeling conveyed by that behavior is that B&N wishes all us pesky customers would just shut up and go away. If they're not careful, I expect we will, permanently. That on-again, off-again engagement on their part certainly doesn't encourage anyone else to remain fully engaged.

[MacMcK1957]

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keriflur wrote:

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Also, I have no idea how to find these forums without a direct link anymore.

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http://bookclubs.barnesandnoble.com

[RHWright]

I've noticed a lightening of traffic in a variety of forums I frequent, not just here.

I suspect many are just caught up in summer vacation, etc.

Also, traffic here tends to peak with either the holiday season (more new users checking it out and looking for help) or with the introduction of a new version of the product. (Color, N2E) Not so much with the NSTwG, but then it was just the same thing with a light pretty much.

I think there's some truth to the idea that some users are getting fatigued by the seeming lack of attention paid by B&N's powers-that-be. So many ideas, suggestions, problems have lingered for too long and some people just wash their hands of it. I'm not going away, but I rarely comment on any of those long-standing issues; I've said my piece on those.

[orb9220]

Thanks for your insights! and yep been pretty peeved at B&N since the beginning of year.

And think the Nook Color is the last device I buy from them. As just way too many hoops and lacking of for my e-reading device. Was always frustrated with their lack of concern for bug fixes and improved e-reading features. And had to go CM7 to get a reader and better web browser and email. Seemed only improvements in features had to do with shopping B&N and Social facebook,twitter,etc.. thing which I don't get as i'm too busy reading than facebooking and twittering about reading on it.

Funny posted this last night and this morning this thread had more new posts than the Nook Tablet & Nook color combined.

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[Sun_Cat]

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MacMcK1957 wrote:

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keriflur wrote:

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Also, I have no idea how to find these forums without a direct link anymore.

...

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http://bookclubs.barnesandnoble.com

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Without a direct link: On the main site, hover over the word Books in the top menu until the large rectangular menu pops up. You'll see Blogs & Forums near the bottom of the third column. That's the only place I know about. Not very prominent, is it?

In fact I'm reminded of my all-time favorite book on website design:

Don't Make Me Think  

The title says it. The author, Steve Krug, says studies show that users tend to click on the first thing they see that a) looks clickable and b) looks as if it just might lead to what they want. A link far down the third column of an unreadably long menu is likely to be ignored.

[flyingtoastr Scribe]

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Sun_Cat wrote:

And another thing, why even bother to add the new Ask B&N board, call it "Our worry free Q&A monitored by BN, its staff, and our resident community experts," and then after a week or so of engagement have all B&N representatives essentially stop posting there? That's just plain demoralizing and discouraging.

The feeling conveyed by that behavior is that B&N wishes all us pesky customers would just shut up and go away. If they're not careful, I expect we will, permanently. That on-again, off-again engagement on their part certainly doesn't encourage anyone else to remain fully engaged.

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Eh.

For starters, it has always been spelled out pretty clearly that this community was primarily intended as a customer interaction board, not a method to talk directly to BN. We could debate whether that is what the board should be focused on (it isn't), but expecting William Lynch to pop in every day to assuage your fears is never going to happen. Alex has been working diligently to try and change that, but he is only one person stuck with the unenviable job of trying to change an entire corporate attitude. It is clearly a work in-progress.

More importantly, people always gloss over the fact that feedback from these forums does directly impact the NOOK products. Just today BN announced that they've worked out a deal to bring DC comics onto NOOKs, and also to enable frame by frame viewing of comic books. This is a direct result of customer feedback from these forums. So was allowing you to put sideloaded content on the home screens of a NC/NT. Or the battery percentage meter in the quick settings. Or the ability to view the total memory in both partitions. Or the ability to delete the sample of the cookbook.

Would it be great to have some actual developer interaction here? Of course (and it would really help sales, but whatever). Could BN stand to have a happier community if they nuked Lithium from orbit and made it easier to find this page? Yep.  But is at best factious to state categorically that BN completely ignores everyone here and wants you all to slink away.