the vynsane asylum

Diabolical wrote:McFarlane still makes toys?

Spawn.com Forums Closing Forever October 14

I was surprised to learn from a fellow boardie, kajiryouji, that Todd McFarlane has decided to close down the forums on Spawn.com in favour of going completely with a social networking scheme— which I think is a mistake…

The Spawn.com forums have been around for over a decade and over that time, a strong community was forged and quite a few real life friendships were made.

I wasn’t an active poster, I was a lurker on the Spawn.com forums for many years. It represents the longest time I’ve maintained a membership on any online forum, ever.

Although in recent years, the Spawn.com forums had lost some of its lustre in part due to product-related business decisions and the economic downturn, the community still managed to remain active.

Social Networking vs. Web Forums

The reason Todd McFarlane gave for closing the Spawn.com forums is that they want to go completely with a social networking solution. In this case, it’s Facebook.

I think going exclusively with a social networking system is a significant mistake and here’s why:

Lack of complete control

With hosting taken completely out of your hands, you don’t have full control over what you’re building.

You can’t add resources as needed. You can’t build a unique look which enhances your corporate presence and identity because you don’t have that degree of customization.

More importantly, you’re completely at the mercy of, as well as “inherit” the problems and policies of Facebook.

For instance, Facebook still has problems the whole issue of user privacy, and now Spawn.com is also forced to operate under that issue as well.

This situation is akin to being a renter versus being a home owner. As a renter, you have many restrictions on what you can do with your dwelling. As a home owner, you can do almost anything you want to your own property.

Format not as conducive to lengthy in-depth discussion

Web forums are designed specifically for the facilitation of mass threaded text-based discussions, so their tools and interfaces are streamlined towards that purpose.

Facebook’s interface revolves around the model of the “singular broadcaster with followers”. It’s geared for quick “drive-by” commenting, not in-depth discussion.

While Facebook does have a Discussion Board feature, it’s extremely rudimentary at best. Facebook’s Discussions Board clearly plays second fiddle to The Wall. The Discussion Board features feels like it was just tacked on and it shows.

I went to Spawn.com’s Facebook page and checked out their Discussion Board. It has one posting with no replies, dated 5 months ago. That should tell you something right there.

Highly Transient

Social networking systems are geared for, and focused primarily on immediacy and the “here and now”, not for persistence or longevity.

Unlike with Web forums, user discussion does not “renew” a Facebook Wall posting. New Wall postings will continue to bury the older Wall postings regardless of any comments those older Wall postings generate.

And when those Wall postings fall off the radar, they take any user discussions with them in the process.

By contrast, when someone posts a reply to a discussion thread on a Web forum, that whole discussion thread is then made “current” again by being moved to the top of the thread listings.

This brings the subject matter back to the forefront, making them more likely to induce further conversation, thus generating a larger degree of user interaction. And it’s this interaction that contributes to the development of the community.

Exclusivity and Severing the Ties

Forcing fans and the already well established community to sign up with yet another service, with all the strings attached to using that service, will alienate a good portion of the existing community.

Reading the comments from community members, there is a strong sense of betrayal. The community that had developed because of the forums, whose membership supported Todd McFarlane Toys, just had their “home” razed and they are now being subjected to a forced re-settlement

Conclusion: Out of Touch

Alienating a long-lived community is not a wise move, given that there is the sense that Todd’s company was already in trouble, judging from the laying-off of in-house product development staff (sculptors etc), the frequent cancellation of product lines and the lack of product variety; it’s virtually all “HALO” now.

kajiryouji, one of the commenters here on Trapped in Plastic made a good point:

Yeah the problem with their way of “social networking” in their facebook and twitter account is there’s less fan to fan interaction but more “here’s our stuff press the like button.”

And from what I’ve seen they don’t really interact with the fans so there’s no actual social networking involved unlike with the boards, it created a community.

I agree! I highly doubt that Spawn.com’s Facebook page will be able to approach anywhere near the success that their self-hosted forums had at developing and fostering a strong sense of community spirit and cohesiveness.

For a while, there was sense that Todd was growing increasingly out of touch with his fans and the collector community that grew out of the forums.

This move to kill the Spawn.com forums seems to prove that point.

Tom Foolery wrote: ↑Mon Oct 16, 2023 10:31 pm Also, Jalen Hurts and Joe Burrows get cool action poses, but Mahomes and Josh Allen get “I’m cold standing on the sidelines” poses. Who the fuck wants those on their shelf?