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I’m currently listening to verstaile by kodak black [MEDIA=spotify]track:5R0gQ30puwU1ffBH6ccEwq[/MEDIA]

That’s one of the main things that’s really missing. We truly need a central login system for Xenforo forum’s, invision community, Nodebb and Discourse. We have facebook, reddit and log in features on xenforo, but it’s buggy sometimes, but I do think it could work. Some users do get frustrated with making new users everywhere. i’ve seen this discussed on social media and Reddit recently. I also think if more forums enabled connection to the fediverse like Wordpress, nodebb and discourse have, we’d be in a lot better place in the short term & long term. We also have social media share buttons, but they’re located in the bottom of forum posts, so they’re not used so much. If they were moved in a better location, they might be more useful for users and guests for growing a forum as well.

Discord has become a hub for communities, gamers, and creators, offering a platform where people can connect, collaborate, and share their passions. One of the most exciting developments in this space is the ability to integrate apps that enhance user interaction. Today, we're happy to announce the partnership between DomoAI and Discord. This integration allows users to easily restyle images within any chat or server, adding a layer of creative expression to everyday interactions. [HEADING=1]A Creative Revolution in Every Chat[/HEADING] The Discord App Directoryserves as a centralized hub where users can discover and add bots to their servers. It features a wide range of applications designed to enhance Discord's functionality, from moderation tools to entertainment options. Discord has introduced an App Launcher, displayed next to the chat bar in text chats and at the bottom of voice calls — makes it easier than ever to access apps and activities. The DomoAI x Discord collaboration introduces the DomoAI Image Restyle app, a feature-rich tool designed to enhance the way users engage on Discord. Whether you’re chatting in private messages, participating in server discussions, or connecting via voice calls, this app brings artistic transformations directly to your fingertips. ‍ Important to Be Aware Of: DomoAI does not access or use any image unless you explicitly choose it through the "Edit with Apps" option in Discord. We do not train on your artwork or images, and no content is stored after generation is complete. Your creations remain 100% yours. We want to assure you that your privacy and creative rights are fully respected. ‍ [HEADING=1]What to Expect from the DomoAI Image Restyle App?[/HEADING] The Image Restyle app has a unique set of features that set it apart: Artistic Transformation: Users can transform images into various styles, such as cartoon looks or American comic art. Multiple Generations: Generate up to 4 stylized images at once for 2 credits. Upscaling Option: Choose your favorite image and upscale it for improved quality. User-Friendly Experience: The app is designed with simplicity in mind. Choose from random styles or customize from over 18 options. [HEADING=1]How to Use the DomoAI Image Restyle App?[/HEADING] 1. Select an image: Upload an image to any chat. 2. Choose a style: Use /model to select a specific style model. Enter /prompt to best describe the results of your idea. 3. Receive artwork: The app will generate 4 styled images. Select one to upscale and download. ‍ ‍ Let's have fun together! We look forward to seeing you explore all the features the DomoAI Image Restyle app has to offer! Whether you want to create unique art for personal use or share fun transformations with friends, this app provides a new experience on Discord. We can't wait to see what you create with DomoAI! Source: https://domoai.app/blog/domoai-x-discord-our-image-restyle-app-now-live-in-the-discord-app-directory

As written by Luc Weisman [MEDIA=medium]45c25d0d2b62[/MEDIA] This story comes three years of rebuilding a news website in the shadow of relentless Google algorithm updates, from organic search to Google Discover and Google News. We tested everything. We spent hundreds of thousands of dollars and countless hours trying to crack what now feels like an unsolvable problem. But what if the truth is harder to swallow? What if there were never a way to recover from Google’s Helpful Content (HCU) updates? What if the game was unwinnable from the start, and we’ve all just been flogging a dead horse? Why write this? Few publishers are willing to share the real stuff because the SEO industry is notoriously secretive (and dodgy at times). TBH I’ve given all the f*cks I have to give, so consider this free advice you didn't have to pay $200,000 for. In late 2023, one of Australia’s longest-running men’s lifestyle publications (my business) was essentially thrown out of Google. It was not penalised. It just gradually lost visibility. Traffic dropped from over eight million monthly uniques to three hundred thousand. There were no manual actions, no warnings, just the result of algorithm evolution. We weren’t publishing spam or gaming the system. We were doing what we had always done: creating original content with a 10-person editorial team focused on relevance and tone, watches, cars, food, travel, and more. We were setting the pace, no question. Our local competitors routinely lifted stories, angles, and ideas from us, reworked them, and claimed them as original. But we were always ahead. First never follows. Ever. Like many others, we turned to the SEO world to make sense of it all. We followed every update from John Mueller, waited for clarification from Danny Sullivan, listened to Barry Adams telling publishers to cut harder, and absorbed Glenn Gabe’s detailed breakdowns of visibility drops. We even approached Brodie Clark, who wanted $20,000 upfront to look at the website. Did we still consider it? Absofuckinglutely we did. You’ll do anything to save your firstborn — even if it has red hair. Everyone had theories and solutions. Most commentary only confirmed what we suspected. We were quietly pushed out, and technical SEO changes alone wouldn’t save us. We also approached the Google News Initiative, a program supposedly built to support journalism. We found surface-level marketing and no meaningful help, support, or answers. Just more empty promises while independent publishers like us sank quietly into irrelevance. ‘Have you read our documentation?’ was the usual response from Google’s News representatives here in Australia. To his credit, he did say that he was ‘flagging it with engineering’, which could mean anything, but we were appreciative as it gave us a glimmer of false hope. The catalyst? Twofold. First, with the November 2021 Core Update, things started slipping. Then came Google’s so-called Helpful Content Update, which promised to reward content made by people, for people. In reality, it turned into a vague, punitive shake-up that hit small to mid-sized publishers the hardest. So we tried to fix it. Not with tricks or shortcuts. But by going line by line through our twelve thousand article archive. We noindexed thin content. Deleted dead categories. Removed tags. Hired real experts. Rebuilt the editorial structure from scratch. And we spent thousands. Over two and a half years (longer actually) and countless hours, we did everything we were supposed to do. It didn’t work. In fact, we lost even more traffic and continue to lose it today. This is the reality no one talks about. Here is the full breakdown of what we did, and why following Google’s rules no longer guarantees survival. [HEADING=2]Triage Mode: Bringing in Lily Ray[/HEADING] Out of sheer desperation, we brought in SEO consultant Lily Ray, one of the few people consistently vocal about Google’s erratic treatment of publishers. We paid six hundred dollars (USD) an hour. She was sharp, pragmatic, and cautious about drawing conclusions without seeing all the data. Here is what she told us: [HEADING=2]Lily Ray’s Recommendations:[/HEADING] Do not delete categories. Demote them in navigation or move them to the footer or sitemap Make categories more granular, not broader Audit every URL using GA, GSC, backlinks, and traffic source data Strengthen internal linking using Link Whisperer or InLinks Add actual text to video-heavy pages Submit each Discover-style section to Google Publisher Center separately Remove or isolate NSFW content, which could be dragging down the entire domain Consider testing a new subdomain just for Discover If Discover shows signs of life on any topic, double down and publish two or three related posts immediately You cover too many topics. Remove some That last point contradicted her first recommendation. If GQ or Esquire can cover everything, why can’t we? She confirmed what we feared. We were not just caught in an update. We were probably soft-banned from Discover. No warning. No confirmation. But zero impressions for twelve months says enough. This also extended to Google News and organic search. So now I want to share what we have done in case it helps someone else. [HEADING=2]1. Purged what we assumed was thin or low quality, but probably wasn’t[/HEADING] We started with word count. Articles under two hundred words are not always low quality, but they often lack depth. Thousands were noindexed, converted to draft, or deleted. It was not about hitting a specific number. We just wanted to avoid anything Google might label unhelpful. Remember that over 15 years, we have interviewed some awe-inspiring people—doctors, CEOs, athletes, you name it. It’s not like our publication was a content farm on the outskirts of Mumbai. We even had a print magazine, 100,000 email subscribers, and a few hundred thousand social followers. [HEADING=2]2. Stripped embed heavy content[/HEADING] Next we tackled stories built around embedded media. TikToks, YouTube videos, tweets. About thirteen hundred of them. These stories often had one or two lines of text and then someone else’s content. We removed the embeds, rewrote the copy, and rebuilt them as original articles. [HEADING=2]3. Cut quote padded news or interviews[/HEADING] We looked at stories padded with quotes. Common practice in newsrooms, but risky when there is little original value. Articles based on Reddit threads, press releases, or celebrity statements were either rewritten or deleted. It didn’t matter that other publishers do it. We are not other publishers. [HEADING=2]4. Fixed the basic editorial structure[/HEADING] Every surviving article was reviewed: Internal links were added to strong-performing articles External links were added to brands, research, or original sources More than one image was included Inline related reads were added to help signal topical relevance It was manual. It was obsessive. It was slow. And ultimately? No visible impact. [HEADING=2]5. Deleted every tag page[/HEADING] We deleted all tag pages across the site. Not noindexed. Deleted. They weren’t ranking. They weren’t being crawled. And they weren’t being used. The impact on traffic? Zero. This confirmed our long standing belief that tag pages were just leftover clutter from WordPress. [HEADING=2]6. Tested E-E-A-T theories[/HEADING] We brought in real subject matter experts. Fashion stylists. Car journalists like Mike Sinclair. Watch experts like Jamie Weissand Felix Scholz. Grooming specialists, hairdressers, GPs and plastic surgeons. We created bios. Cross-linked their profiles. Gave them proper credit. Interviewed them regularly and ensured their stories were high quality. Based on the guidelines, this should have helped. But it didn’t. The content performed the same. [HEADING=2]7. Pruned dormant categories[/HEADING] Then we went further, too far, some would say, but desperate times call for desperate measures. And let’s be honest, it can’t get any worse at this point. Despite Lily’s original advice and our own instincts, we completely deleted all content verticals, such as style, sport, grooming, food, and entertainment. Later, she recommended that we have too many topics. Our thinking was based on the Google Search documentation leak that mentioned SiteFocus. We assumed being too broad was hurting us, so we narrowed our scope. The result? We lost even more traffic due to the disappearance of long-tail content. No recovery followed. Lily had advised that we were too broad. But all lifestyle websites are broad. That is the nature of the format. Personally, I was certain this would do the trick. Just slowly remove entire categories in hope the ghost in the machine was in one of those. It appears not. [HEADING=2]8. Google Discover and News continued to reward garbage and not ‘quality’.[/HEADING] The most frustrating part? While we were cutting carefully written journalism, Google Discover was filled with spam. AI generated content. Clickbait. Content farms with fake author profiles. Image heavy junk with no editorial value. It completely undermined the promise of helpful content. It proved we were not even playing the right game. [HEADING=2]9. Y M Y L & [/HEADING] We had a large health section focused on fitness and mental health for men. We were proud of it. Trainers and doctors contributed. But we were unsure if this was holding us back. So we deindexed and removed the entire health section. Two thousand articles. A real loss. Especially since men need more guidance in this area, not less. NSFW is a pretty obvious one. However, we were clutching at straws and desperate, so we systematically removed every instance of swearing (like sh*t or cr*ap). Even words that could be slightly flagged as ‘inappropriate’ got rewritten. Thousands of articles were edited. Manually. We then wondered if fitness articles with shirtless guys working out could be an issue, so the entire fitness category was edited. You can see just how far we were willing to take this. I was willing to kill years of work just to find the smoking gun. [HEADING=2]10. Too many ads![/HEADING] Let’s be clear, this is complete nonsense. Those vague video chats John Mueller does about whether ads impact rankings are meaningless. Glenn Gabe also mentioned this too. If your site is loaded with pop-ups, autoplay videos, and a terrible user experience, you can still rank just fine. It doesn’t matter whether you have five or fifty per page. Just look at the Daily Mail or Daily Express. Those chaotic, ad-choked messes rank everywhere and print money doing it. We became so cautious that we all but removed ads from the site. Like wtf. We were willing to throw away revenue to try and find a solution to the problem. So much so that today we earn about 3-%5% of what we once did on programmatic ads. Them’s the brakes when you build a house on quicksand. [HEADING=2]11. Changed subdirectory structure in permalinks[/HEADING] We were told by Lily that Google couldn’t properly identify our site’s content themes because we didn’t include categories in our URL structure. So we rebuilt the entire permalink setup to include subdirectories for every article — watches, cars, travel, business, and so on — to give Google a clearer content hierarchy. It was a big change that created thousands of redirects across the site. The result? Absolutely zero impact. This was 18 months ago too. No dice. [HEADING=2]12. Competitive analysis[/HEADING] It won't surprise you, but my analysis of other websites was exhaustive. What was most interesting was the inconsistency between seemingly similar sites to ours and the difference in visibility across all Google channels. This led me down the backlink path; however, nothing stood out. We had a 15-year backlink profile with Bloomberg, CNN, The Guardian, Business Insider, and Wikipedia linking to many of our stories. Sure, there was a fair share of sh*t links in there, but everyone has those. We had even tried the disavow path, but that proved to be useless. My only conclusion here is maybe too much affiliate-focused content, which is why we removed every ‘Best…’ story we had (there was a lot btw — most products we purchased and reviewedin the studio. Again, trial and error. Mostly errors, and things that just didn’t make sense. [HEADING=2]13. Lastly, technical SEO.[/HEADING] We genuinely believed technical SEO would be a game-changer. Every year, we invested around $60,000 to $70,000 into development, testing, and benchmarking against sites that were thriving. We scrutinised everything from permalink structures, server configurations, Core Web Vitals, whether using www made a difference, and dozens of other technical factors. We double-checked, triple-checked, ran audits, optimised crawlability, and made the site as fast and clean as possible. It should have been a textbook example of technical best practice. But once again, it made no difference. [HEADING=2]What we concluded…[/HEADING] After two and a half years, thousands of hours, and more than two hundred thousand dollars, we reached a difficult but honest conclusion. Google does not operate with a single set of rules. And that is fine. There is no point crying foul. Hate the player… We tried to fix things the right way. We did not take shortcuts. We followed the rules. Not just the public ones, but the ones implied through leaks and updates. We treated the site like a real publication and tried to regain Google’s trust. But when we compare ourselves to others in the same space, including newer sites with weaker content published at scale, it is clear that the playing field is not even. Some of them dominate Discover and News. Some run headlines that no proper editor would approve. And yet, they continue to grow. We continue to shrink. We were not an authority even for categories like watches, which we had covered extensively since day one. The first DMARGE post was a watch story ffs. The part that hurts the most is this. It has taken the joy out of finding stories. The thrill of beating the news cycle. Of spotting something big media missed. That lightning bolt moment that drives real publishers. We no longer chase it. Because what is the point if no one sees it? It’s better to publish on Instagram or in our newsletter now, rather than as an article. As of today, we have gone from a twelve-thousand-article site with fifteen years of authority to three thousand articles focused only on watches, cars, and business travel. I do not understand how all this effort and precision can lead to zero gain. It tells me the issue is not with us. It is with them. And it took three years and a lot of money to figure that out. Along the way, we also lost many full-time journalists. My gut says one of Google’s many signals is wrong. Not for everyone. I think that because other competitors are in the same boat. The difference is that we did everything to try and fix it. Also, I think generally Google’s focus is now e-commerce and AI, as that makes money. Just look at GSC and GA4, they’ve evolved for shopping, not news. If there is any value left in this process, it is in being honest. Maybe this post will save someone else thousands of hours trying to decode a rulebook that keeps changing. I have spent fifteen years building a digital publishing company that people actually enjoy reading. I have never seen an industry move the goalposts so often and punish the people who try to play fair. Honestly, I don’t know how much longer I will keep doing this. TBH journalism is generally fucked, and will soon be thing of the past. But if you are still reading, at least now you know. You are not alone. And if you ever find the golden ticket, please share it. Your peers deserve success too.

I think we should stop putting a huge emphasis on what the new generation is doing or what they’re not doing and focus on the communities we have. Social media all took 10+ years to build, communities are the same way if we want them to succeed and do well. Worrying about statistics only drains us and pulls in deeper. As long as we focus on creating and building our core communities, things will get better. Word of mouth is the strongest growth factor. We can pull users in from social media with quality content and posting around reddit. But, it’s not possible if we’re not watching things that Reddit is doing wrong or what other sites(social media) is doing wrong as well. that’s the key thing. Forums don’t need to adapt to social media standards tbh, they’re not like social media. Reddit strives on their badge like system, reputation system and karma, which are something that forums could also implement further. Those features could boast forum’s appeal all around.

Can’t say I’ve ever had to deal with cliques on any board that I’ve had to manage, but I’d stop them in their tracks before it ever it got out of hands. Cliques can break a forum if they’re not resolved swift and fast in the beginning, especially if they’re treating new members wrong, which is something you don’t want to happen. As long as you have good rules in place and a valuable staff team, they won’t be able to run rampant.

I am working on building a facebook page along side other social media accounts. I’m building a community around my facebook page as well. So far, I’m about a month and a half in. It’s been going pretty well so far. I’m hoping that i’ll be able to get it fully monetized within the next few months or so.

Verticle Sc The main thing is also Vertical scope communities aren’t ran like they used to be either, which is very unfortunate. Most of them we’re thriving online communities prior to being brought out by their founders. If they actually focused on improving the forums, then they wouldn’t be declining. They basically just sit there and collect dust.🤦🏿‍♂️ For example, they own TheadminZone, which is a shell of its former self and many car forums. There’s various discussion topics across the web where users discuss them buying forums and killing them. https://www.reddit.com/r/4x4/s/8t29FJxVA1 https://forums.irixnet.org/thread-3430.html https://www.triumphrat.net/threads/buy-out-vertical-scope-%E2%80%9Cno-pictures-no-peace-%E2%80%9D.1007693/ you can also see how many forums they own here: https://trends.builtwith.com/websitelist/VerticalScope

They were previously using the Reddit results. This is a actually a new feature. I actually wouldn't be too shocked if they try to roll back their Google+ social media platform in some form or another. I also feel that they might be trying to take away Reddit's dominance as well. Reddit has been focusing on other features just incase Google's takes away that as well, so it'll be interesting to see what happens in the near future.

I’m currently listening to i got better by morgan wallen [MEDIA=spotify]track:4gfrYDtaRmp6HPvN80V2ob[/MEDIA]

I think so. I truly believe we’ll see a rise back to forums in the near future. It may be in a year, two or three. But it will happen. I’ve seen them decline, rise and fall. As long as community owners focus on the postive things and not so much negative, forums will always serve their purpose. There are many avenues that forums cover that other sites don’t. There are niche based where social media sites aren’t. We don’t follow algorithms nor trending topics. That’s the main thing. Forums are knowledge bases and critical to the internet. Without them, the internet wouldn’t be so powerful like it is today.

VerticalScope, behind 1,200+ online communities, just confirmed Google updates have negatively impacted their business. Some highlights from their Q1 '25 earnings update: Revenue decreased 8% to $13.6M 🔻 Increased consulting costs for "AI initiatives and SEO optimizations" 🔎 Adjusted EBITDA decreased 30% to $3.6M 📉 They expect to average 90M monthly active users in Q2 📊 Generated $3M in operating cash flow 💰 Net loss of $2.4M (compared to a $1M loss a year ago) 🔻 Regarding SEO they also noted that volatility in search results is something they've been dealing with for 20 years so they're not in new territory. They added that it could be the case that in a future update, things swing back in the direction of prioritising their forums in results again. [ATTACH type=full]1605[/ATTACH]

I’m currently listening to lessons by Kid kenzi [MEDIA=spotify]track:3KH01U3W6kOuVEV4jRpsJj[/MEDIA]

I check my bank balance as well. It helps me keep track of my spending and it doesn’t make feel stressed. It helps me keep things balanced. I don’t keep a budget. As long as my bills as paid and I still have my money to spend, I’m content for the month. I’ve been saving more as of late.

FrankenPHP, a modern high-performance PHP application server created by Kévin Dunglas and sponsored by Les-Tilleuls.coop, is now PHP officially supported by the PHP Foundation. FrankenPHPintegrates PHP directly into Go and Caddy, simplifying deployment, improving performance, and reducing costs. It powers real-time features, supports advanced hosting scenarios, and offers a performance-boosting “worker mode” already integrated by Laravel, Symfony, and Yii. The PHP Foundation will actively contribute to FrankenPHP’s development and host its code on the official PHP GitHub, marking a major step toward modernizing the PHP ecosystem while keeping governance with the original maintainers. PHP is a programming language used by around 70% of websites and applications, and by key software and frameworks such as WordPress, Laravel and Symfony. FrankenPHP offers a host of new features that allow to: simplify the development of applications written in PHP; drastically improve performance, while considerably reducing hosting costs (FinOps) and energy consumption (GreenOps); facilitate deployment in production, whether on bare-metal servers or in cloud-native environments; easily develop real-time features thanks to native Mercureprotocol support; extend PHP apps with Go, C, and C++ programming languages; support the PHP programming language in any application written in Go (server, proxy, in-house development...). Specifically, FrankenPHP integrates the official PHP interpreter as a module for Go and Caddy, the popular next-generation web server that supports the latest web platform innovations in terms of performance, security, and DevOps: HTTP/3, compression with Zstandard, 103 Early Hints, automatic generation and renewal of HTTPS certificates, Encrypted Client Hello (ECH), structured logs, OpenMetrics/Prometheus metrics... Caddy is also co-maintained by Kévin and sponsored by Les-Tilleuls.coop. Thanks to its innovative architecture, FrankenPHP lets you install a complete PHP environment (interpreter, web server, extensions, etc.) optimized for performance and security, by downloading a single binary file (statically compiled executable) or a Docker image. FrankenPHP also offers a performance-optimized mode called “worker mode”, which takes advantage of the capabilities of the Go programming language. When this optional mode is used, the PHP application will be able to retain in memory those elements that can be reused to process other HTTP requests instead of being completely reset to process each incoming HTTP request (“share nothing” model). Worker mode is especially useful for frameworks such as Symfony and Laravel that can prevent rebuilding their kernels and services again and again for nothing. Using this mode requires minimal adaptations to the code of modern PHP applications in line with good programming practice. The Laravel, Symfony and Yii frameworks already offer official integrations of FrankenPHP's worker mode, enabling worker mode to be activated without modifying the application code. According to an analysis carried out last summer by Sylius, the publisher of the eponymous e-commerce platform, the use of FrankenPHP's worker mode reduces the software's response times by 80%, while reducing by more than 6 the number of machines required to serve the same number of users. FrankenPHP is now a reliable, mature solution used in production for an ever-increasing number of projects. The project now has almost 8,000 stars on GitHub, has passed the symbolic 100-contributor mark, and is officially supported by numerous hosting providers, including Upsun, Laravel Cloud, and Clever Cloud. To get to this point, it was necessary to initiate close collaboration between the development teams of FrankenPHP, the PHP interpreter itself, the Caddy web server, and even the Go programming language. Today, we're proud to announce that, with the aim of intensifying this collaboration, enabling the project to gain momentum, and modernizing the entire PHP ecosystem, the FrankenPHP project is now officially supported by the PHP Foundation. In concrete terms, FrankenPHP's source code will be transferred to the PHP project's GitHub repository, and PHP Foundation employees will actively contribute to the maintenance and development of FrankenPHP to ensure its reliability, durability and compatibility with the latest language innovations. Part of the FrankenPHP documentation will also be transferred to the PHP website. The governance of the project remains unchanged, and the current team of maintainers (Kévin Dunglas, Robert Landers, Alexander Stecher) will continue to be in charge of releases, as well as code reviews. They will be actively collaborating with the PHP Foundation team in charge of the language development. In addition to the support provided by the foundation, Les-Tilleuls.coop will continue to sponsor FrankenPHP (as well as PHP and Caddy) by providing developers and contributing financially. FrankenPHP is already promoted by Caddy as the official, modern solution for using PHP with this server. In the future, to simplify the PHP development experience (one-line installation of a complete development environment) and to promote a solution that, for projects requiring it, considerably improves the performance and efficiency of PHP applications, FrankenPHP may be highlighted on the PHP website as one of the ways to use the language (other SAPIs such as PHP-FPM will continue to be fully supported solutions). To find out more about FrankenPHP and the many new possibilities it offers, take a look at its documentation. To meet the software's authors and find out how it is used in production, don't miss the API Platform conference (by the same authors as FrankenPHP) taking place on September 18 and 19 in France (Lille). Alternatively, join us online for PHPverse on June 17 — a special event celebrating PHP’s 30th anniversary. Finally, to help keep the PHP ecosystem innovating, support the foundation! Source: https://les-tilleuls.coop/en/blog/frankenphp-is-now-officially-supported-by-the-php-foundation

According to executives from Discord and Substack, the era of social media as broadcast has given way to a new kind of platform, one where engagement is built not on viral posts but tightly knit communities. In a Social Media Week panel moderated by ADWEEK chief executive Will Lee, Discord’s vice president of sales Adam Bauer and Substack’s head of lifestyle partnerships Christina Loff made the case that their platforms are ushering in a new era of platform media—and that brands with the right playbooks can capitalize it. “The biggest change we’re seeing is that community is the product,” said Bauer. “It’s not about follower counts anymore.” [HEADING=3]The shift toward small, intentional communities[/HEADING] Discord and Substack may look different on the surface—one is a real-time communication app, while the other is a newsletter and multimedia platform. But both have seen explosive growth in recent years fueled by the same phenomenon: the rise of small, private spaces. On Discord, 90% of servers, or community hubs, are micro-groups of just five to 20 people, according to Bauer. And despite its substantial reach—Discord counts around 200 million monthly active users globally—the core experience remains geared toward intimacy. “It’s basically a virtual living room where friends hang out over voice, video, or chat,” he said. Substack, which has recently unveiled a slew of products in addition to its core newsletter offering, has also become a destination for creators seeking to build smaller, more intentional audiences. With its new Twitter-like social feed, called Notes, and its nascent rollout of a TikTok-esque vertical feed, the platform is looking to maintain that personal connection while allowing it to exist in formats beyond its famous newsletter product. “We see big influencers from TikTok or Instagram come to Substack to ‘paywall the personal,’” said Loff. “They want to get more real with superfans in a space they control.” [HEADING=3]A new challenge, and opportunity, for brands[/HEADING] For marketers, these new platforms offer access to highly engaged but difficult-to-reach audiences. But the old broadcast playbook will not work. Discord users are “digitally native, internet-savvy people who don’t want traditional ads,” according to Bauer. As such, brands must be prepared to cultivate conversations, rather than control them. A similar line of logic applies to brands engaging on Substack, a phenomenon that has picked up pace in recent months. On Tuesday, the retailer American Eagle became the latest brand to join the platform. For companies, the platform recommends taking cues from its native creator community. The RealReal, for example, launched on Substack by hiring a fashion writer embedded in its fashion ecosystem, creating editorial content that resembles the kind being created by heavyweights like Laura Reilly’s Magasin or Emilia Petrarca’s Shop Rat. Both platforms stressed that brands must dedicate resources and community management to succeed. “The ones that fail come in, launch a big splashy server, and then abandon it,” Bauer said. “Communities die quickly without ongoing care.” [HEADING=3]Monetization remains experimental[/HEADING] Neither Discord nor Substack currently offers a turnkey solution for brand advertising. Discord only launched its ads business in 2024, with a “rewarded ad” format designed to mimic gaming behavior by giving users a value exchange for engagement. And Substack, famously, has remained ad-free, relying on its subscription-driven model where creators keep 90% of paid revenue. Still, Loff noted that the company sees expanding live video and shows as a possible next frontier for branded partnerships. While both platforms are still working out how brands can best participate, their message to marketers was clear: There is no shortcut to success in these environments. “The communities are small by design,” said Bauer. “You have to show up, contribute, and be ready to stick around. If you do, the loyalty and engagement you’ll find is unlike anything on traditional social platforms.” Source: https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/discord-substack-niche-communities-platform-media/

[ATTACH type=full]1604[/ATTACH] Last year, ChatGPT was the 15th most visited site in the world. Now it’s #5. It just passed Reddit, Amazon, and Whatsapp, and it’s still climbing. Every other site in the top 10 is falling. Wikipedia is down nearly 6% in a single month (from March to April). Chatgpt is steady rising while Google is on the decline. It is now looking like we may see Google get knocked off its throne if they’re unable to do something with their search engine relatively soon, especially with more users using Chatgpt for searching these days.

If pagination isn’t showing at the bottom of your forum nodes, but you know you’ve got more threads than what should fit on one page Nine times out of ten, it’s one of three things: Thread display limit’s too high — Check your “Discussions per page” setting in Admin CP > Setup > Options > Threads, Discussions and Conversations. If that’s set to like 100 or something high, and your node has fewer than that number of threads, XenForo won’t show any page numbers — because it thinks everything fits on one page. Drop that number down to something like 20 or 30, then go look again. Permissions are off — Make sure the usergroup you’re testing with has permission to view threads by others. If not, the forum might look like it’s got one page when really it’s just not showing the other users’ threads. Your theme is hiding it — This one’s sneaky. Some custom styles (or even a botched template edit) can cause the pagination block to not render visually. It’s still there, just not visible. You can test this by going to a node and manually adding ?page=2 to the URL. If it loads more threads — you’ve found the issue. Pagination is working, it’s just not being displayed. Try these solutions: Temporarily switch to the default XenForo theme and check the same node. If the page numbers show up there, it’s 100% a theme/template issue. Easy fix — compare your forum_view template with the default one and see what’s missing. Still nothing? Double-check how many threads are actually in that node and what your per-page setting is. If the thread count’s not high enough, the pagination won’t kick in until it hits the limit. XenForo doesn’t have a “turn on pagination” button, it’s automatic , but it only shows when those conditions are met. If you’re not seeing it, it’s always a setting, permission, or template thing.

Semrush and ahrefs can help you with finding backlink’s, but how can AI help with this? I know that it’s good for optimizing your content for AI overviews and semantic seo while using your current content, which isn’t an issue as it’ll improve based upon your current wording and tone.

This. I also consider a forum to be successful if it's managed to survive and outlast other forums in its niche, whether there were closed down by their other owners, sold, or just flat out closed down for any other reasons. The success determination of one forum isn't the same for all owners. Whether it's thousands of members, thousands of posts, or generating income. To me, building a community from the ground up and watering it to be a good place to hang out is a successful one to me. As long as someone says "This community is a nice place to be". I know that the community is/was success. We did our job as a community owner and that is something that'll last forever. Our goal is always building an everlasting community that'll be a platform for those to enjoy, kick back and connect with everyone. That's a success to me. Activity levels come and go, but the love for our communities will always remain strong.

Google has a new beta feature to encourage searchers to add comments and have discussions around a specific topic. It is called "Discussions" and has a beta label on it. You can add your own thoughts/comments to the topic and those comments can appear across a number of Google properties and services. It makes you wonder if Google is potentially looking for ways to replace all those Reddit discussions with their own? This was spotted by Nicholas McDonough who posted a number of screenshots on Xbut I can replicate it, here are some of the screenshots. Here is what it looks like in the Google Search results on mobile: When you click in, you can see more of the comments and also add your comments: Here is the notice label that says: I like it how Glenn Gabe put it on X, "there's definitely a weird tension between Google and Reddit now with Reddit expanding its on-site search functionality (via AI) and Google testing the waters with more discussions-like functionality. Of course, Google could reduce rankings and traffic at any point for Reddit, so I would say they have the upper hand. Will be interesting to follow." Source: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-discussions-beta-feature-39393.html

Reddit, a forum-style social media app created in 2005, just reached its peak earnings this year, with the platform valued at $21 billion. However, CEO Steve Huffman said it wasn’t an easy path to success. In fact, when the co-founder joined the Prof G Pod podcast Sunday, he admitted his employees just weren’t up to par. When the business started, he said, there was a culture of “idealism.” Wrapped up in some of that idealism was also, like, not working very hard,” said the entrepreneur, who has a net worth of $50 million. Huffman, who went to a private high school and the University of Virginia, took a break from Reddit in 2009 when he spent several months backpacking in Costa Rica and launching a new travel website called Hipmunk. He rejoined as CEO in 2015. A big change for Reddit, he said, was that it “wasn’t running as a business. We were really idealistic, and I think in many ways the idealism has been very good, but we were also idealistic about not being a business—which is not a great way to run a sustainable business." The tech tycoon remembers telling employees: “Look, we have to work really, really hard. We’re in a competitive space.” The platform, which has rivaled even the likes of Elon Musk‘s X and Mark Zuckerberg‘s Meta, has attracted at hundreds of millions of users. “If we don’t work really hard and work really smart and make this thing successful both from a user point of view and business point of view, then we don’t get to do this, and we’ll never achieve our mission,” added the CEO. Huffman turned the company around after rejoining and the new version went public in March 2024. Since then, the stock is up 147 percent. Huffman said that privileged Silicon Valley bros are used to this “idealism.” “In the Bay Area, broadly, is this—it’s almost an entitlement of, ‘I work at these companies, but I don’t have to work very hard and I’m here for myself,’” he said, adding that some of his employees used to take ideas from other companies. Tech billionaires have in recent months cozied up to President Donald Trump, including “special government employee” Musk; Trump campaign donor Zuckerberg; and Jeff Bezos, who donated to Trump’s inauguration fund. All three attended the Jan. 20 celebration. Huffman, on the other hand, has previously banned a Reddit page dedicated to Trump and kicked alt-right extremists off the platform. Source: https://www.thedailybeast.com/reddit-ceo-steve-huffman-my-staff-were-not-working-hard-enough/

Leaders without a roadmap— Are just guessing: Most leaders don’t fail for lack of effort. They fail because they lack clarity. Without a clear path, even the best intentions fall short. Teams lose direction. People lose trust. Momentum stalls. This leads to: Confusion instead of clarity Missed moments for growth Talent wasted instead of developed Hesitation instead of confident action Teams reacting instead of anticipating Mistrust instead of strong relationships Short-term wins without long-term impact To stop this cycle, great leaders build roadmaps that guide action and shape culture: 1️⃣ Leading Change: • Start with a clear vision, not just a plan • Define the real problem before you solve it • Choose the style that fits the moment, not just your comfort zone • Communicate the “why” behind every decision • Inspire action, don’t just demand it • Build trust before you need it • Address conflict head-on, don’t let it fester • Focus on execution, not just ideas • Measure what matters, not just what’s easy • Adapt without losing your core principles • Hold yourself to a high standard—always • Reflect and refine as you go 2️⃣ Making Smart Moves: • Know when to keep pushing and when to pivot • Recognize patterns others miss • Ask the tough questions before problems surface 3️⃣ Learning & Improvement: • Focus on strengths, but address weaknesses • Turn lessons into leverage • Celebrate progress to fuel momentum • Reflect with purpose, not just routine 4️⃣ Mentoring & Growth: • Share what you know without holding back • Create leaders, not just followers • Think beyond your tenure— build for the next generation • Prepare others to lead without you Great leaders don’t just react. They anticipate, plan, and adapt. They make every move count. [ATTACH type=full]1602[/ATTACH]

I remember when I first started back in 2005-2006. I was only 15/16 at the time. I had no clue what I was doing, but it was a learning process. I’m grateful that I was able to learn from more experienced forum owners at the time. Especially those that were around on Theadminzone back then. Without TAZ, I have no idea where I’d be as a community owner today. There’s always a lot to learn as a community owner. It’s always nice to learn new things as we grow as a forum admin. Reading books about community management and leadership can helps us a lot more as well.

Now that AI overviews seems to be rolled out fully in google search, how’s everyone feeling about it? Is your google search traffic on the rise or decline? Have you seen better results when searching for things on google or worst?