Aside from the recent silence at the board, I'm asking around a few questions to determine how the software may work in the future.

It's come to my attention that the web is starting to become a selfish, user-centric system rather than site-centric.  That means the vast majority of people interested in unique content have Myspace/Facebook/Twitter/Blog pages, and use the technology available there to "follow" or "watch" things they're interested in.

I can see why there might be attraction to that.  Instead of keeping track of an array of bookmarks in your web browser, you visit your Twitter page (or iphone app) and get a complete listing of everything you care about.  It's unmoderated, so you can say what you feel like.  And it's generally more your own social circle, so there's not as much risk as a public forum.  Plus, if you have something truly unique to post, it will probably be on a site you control, so you can see the response to it quickly and directly.

Message boards are outside that realm.  The Twitter/Myspace/Facebook/Blog is your home, and a message board is like leaving your home to visit someplace unfamiliar, with strangers and cliques.  And for a lot of people, they're slow - not nearly as addictive as reloading your Twitter page constantly to see if anyone comments on your latest post, because on a Message Board, it could be hours or days before anyone replies.

That said, this is not a predition of the death of Message Boards.  Instead, it's a time to improve the way they communicate with people.

If you have your own Weblog, or Twitter or Myspace or Facebook, I'd like to hear how you would like to see this message board either integrated with it or work alongside it, in a manner that just might encourage you to visit it a lot more.

This Message Board does have RSS capability, which works with a variety of web-based services.  But is that enough?  Do we need more direct integration to get attention?  And which services would you like to see integrated, and how?