Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Are forums and magazines dying?

I recently took a hiatus from social media. But it seems there is not a lot of activity on forums anymore. I haven’t bought or looked at a magazine in years. Just wondering what the experts think? Seems like unless you’re looking on Facebook or instagram etc there just isn’t much activity.

Read a good book !

Most magazines are nothing but long advertisements, and you can get them for free online anyways.

Forums are definitely not as popular as they were. However, I would say that forums, when they were at their peak, were not much more than Facebook is today. At my peak of forum consumption-- say, about 2005, there were many forums that seemed like they were just there for:

1) The aggrandizement of the moderators
2) Astronomical post counts.

In one instance, a turkey forum, every legitimate post on every thread was followed by a few dozen "Whoo-hoo!" responses, usually filled with a lot of emoji's and animated gifs. Most of those ding dongs migrated to My Space and then to Facebook.

Magazines? At my peak, I had over 2 dozen subscriptions. I gave up my last one a while back. Even the ones I wrote for became nothing but ads and fluff.

Forums like this one are still excellent sources of material. The other thing I regularly read are weblogs. I'm rather partial to the latter, because I've been publishing my own since 2004.

One thing that has attracted my attention is Pinterest. It's a little like leafing through a magazine in the doctor's office. However, if you see something you like, you can click on it and see what may be an interesting article. It also allows you to pin stuff you like to your own topic-centric boards for later retrieval and you can open those boards for subscription, so other people can see what you've found. The more you use it, the more Pinterest fine tunes itself so that you see more of what you like. You can also tell it to "Hide" the stuff you don't like.

A trick I've learned over the years is to Google something and then to turn to the images tab and browse pictures instead of text. It lets you search gobs of stuff much faster-- as they say "a picture is worth a thousand words." Pinterest is like that.

I've got a board on Pinterest for ideas for the addition we're going to build when KYHillChick and I retire to the farm. We use that board to share architectural ideas.

This post needs a like button.......

I take handloader and American rifleman.

I still get and read Handloader and Guns Magazine. Of course get American Rifleman too but don't read it much anymore.

Media is changing as the people who consume it change. I think fewer and fewer people will get their media from print as time goes on, and that the typical internet forums have seen their heyday, but more and more people are online every day, and they are going somewhere. It isn't necessarily to Facebook.

You just have to be on Facebook now to hear Ron Spomer explain why the .375 H&H doesn't work anymore.

Life NRA member so I get the Rifleman. Shooting Times is close to being cancelled but those are the only two. I seldom post much as most subjects have been hammered to death and most questions are signs of laziness in the inquirer as simple searches can come up with many threads with answers. I try not to reward laziness.

Forums are definitely dying off. Slower in the shooting world than for other topics but reddit and facebook groups have taken a lot of the market share. I like forums better because its much easier to find old posts but you have to go where the people are congregated. Used to be if I wanted to learn about a new hobby or major purchase (truck, boat, etc), the first thing I would do is find a forum. Now days that info is on facebook.

You don't think this is social media?

I tried a little Facebooking some years back, but soon realized it wasn't for me. Now that we know what a bunch of creeps run it and what they're really up to, I'm glad I did. Nothing they offer can't be accomplished by other means.

Forums just picked up repeating the same old crap where magazines left off...over and over.

I agree

Actually, magazines are doing fine in the U.S. Recent figures indicate there's even been an overall sales increase in recent years--which may actually be related to the drop-off in Internet use. It also involves book sales....

A professional association of book publishers conducts regular surveys to pinpoint market trends. One of the things they discovered in the past few years is that (contrary to the popular belief often read on, uh, forums) the sales of printed, paper books were increasing, while sales of e-books were declining. Responses to the survey indicated the reasons were pretty simple: Prices of e-books had increased so much they basically matched the prices of printed paper books, but perhaps more important, so many Americans make their living spending a large part of their day on computers that when they go home, they don't want to stare at yet another screen. Instead they prefer to "relax" with a paper book. (Less important reasons are that it's easier to share paper books--and for some of us, to make notes in the margins of the pages.)

This is evidently also part of the reason magazines are doing well. Yes, some have folded in the past decade or so, but others appear all the time. This is why overall magazine sales have gone up slightly in the past few years.

On a more personal note (also related to Phil's post), we have seen a steady rise not just in book sales on riflesandrecipes.com, but subscriptions to our on-line magazine, RIFLE LOONY NEWS--which is also offered in a printed, paper collection. One of our subscribers suggested a collection of the first five years, and we thought that was kinda nuts, since everybody who subscribes gets access to all the past issues. But when we asked other subscribers if they'd be interested in a paper copy, they were enthusiastic as well. So we printed the book, and many people not only order it but an on-line subscription at the same time.

Both the NRA magazines are real rags compared to what they were back in the day. Only reason I get them is 'cause I'm a Life Member, otherwise I wouldn't bother.

Ditto. American Rifleman gets a 30 second perusal for anything of interest but about 11 months out of 12 it goes straight from the mailbox into the recycling bin.

Since I am an avid reader, I'm always looking for a new author or source. I have to admit right up front, I much prefer printed paper in hand. Since my wings were recently clipped, I'm buying more than ever as I have time on my hands.
It seems that over the last couple of years, subscriptions to many magazines can be had for 6 or 8 bucks a year. Even at that, I find most magazines are not worth the time to flip through the first time. Many are nothing more than an informercial.
Seems most of the gun rags are trying to convince me someone has reinvented a black rifle shooting some spiffy new caliber reinventing 30-30 ballistics and is worth $2000.
Got a new American Rifleman yesterday and was both surprised, and delighted, to see a pic of a Savage 99.
Also believe that the editors are no longer giving the better writers enough room to spin their tale.
Recently bought both volumes of Barsness' Gungack, and offer that as evidence. Good stuff, and that's an understatement.

This is anti-social media. If you don't believe it, check out the recent sparring matches with Big Stick.

I'm on facebook, but the only things I post are political or humor. If you want to find out any more, I'm in the phone book. With a land line number. Call me. We'll talk. As to magazines, I get Rifle, American Hunter, Sports Afield, Car&Driver, Automobile, Grassroots Motorsports, and Top Gear. And swap with my buddy up the hill for ones I don't get. Love to turn a page. And I've never had an e-book. And won't.