TalkBoard Elections/05 - Question 7: What will FlyerTalk look like in three years?

This question was submitted by member airbus320:

"What will FlyerTalk look like in three years?"

Hello to the voting members,

Well, I have just spent the last 15minutes trying to find that old crystal ball of mine, but alas I don’t know where the wife has put it, so will just have to put forward some of my ideas of what the board will be like in a 3 years time, but when my wife returns from the shops and she can remember where the crystal ball is I am sure I will be able to give you a very accurate description of the board.

My predictions (note: without the use of the crystal ball).

1. Board membership will be increase to over 100,000 (currently 80,000)
2. Postings will increase in line with the membership increase (unless the new members are all “lurkers”.
3. The board will have a number of new forums to reflect any new travel requirements, airlines or hotel chains.
4. The board will become more diversified than it is already.

Apart from that I don’t see the board changing that much in the future as its good just know.

What might change is the way that we travel and do business. World events will certainly be the leader in that field.

Regards
RadioMan

Functionally I don’t think FT will change much. I don’t feel that it is broken so it doesn’t need fixing. However in three years the state of the art for BBS’ will no doubt progress and a more user friendly and more powerful GUIs may be available. Just as our latest upgrade added features, future upgrades should be evaluated on an individual basis.

Things change slowly - very slowly. The most constructive example I can give is to take a trip down memory lane to what Flyertalk was 3 years ago. Here's the screenie...

http://www.chastain.us/ftsm.JPG

The changes have been evolution, not revolution and that is what I believe we will continue to see.

(For those interested, you can view the "Wayback" site and see historical saves of old sites at www.archive.org (http://www.archive.org ) - a very neat site).

If I use my last three years on FlyerTalk as a guideline, the FlyerTalk of 2008 will probably look something like this:


There will be several new forums, several merged forums and several discontinued forums. This kind of goes without saying although I decided to say it anyway. ;)
Membership will be in the 175,000 range. I come up with that figure by plugging in the growth we've seen over the last three years (+65,000 members) and factoring in both a higher percentage of people who'll be online and the ever increasing popularity of FlyerTalk as THE portal for all things related to points and miles.
We'll be North of 9,000,000 on total posts.
FlyerTalk will have a new look and perhaps even a new, updated logo.
We will be on a new type or version of bulletin board software that perhaps doesn't even exist today. This software will be designed to sync with the ever increasing bandwidth, computer graphics capability, browser enhancements and user sophistication of it's members.
The FlyerTalk of 2008 will be managed and directed from the corporate level by a full-time team of dedicated professionals. And FlyerTalk may even have a new set of owners in 2008. Not trying to rush our benevolent host, Randy, out the door here but I see a point where this entrepreneur extraordinaire moves along to the next big project.


The above are some of the cosmetic changes I see in my crystal ball for 2008 and beyond.
But the REAL guts of FlyerTalk....it's dedicated, devoted and almost rabid membership....will remain unchanged in their desire to make FlyerTalk the best source of travel advice on the Internet.

Three years is not that far away, so I will be realistic. I see FlyerTalk being much like you see now, perhaps a bit more user-friendly and easier to find the forum you are looking for. Naturally, the membership will have grown and with that a bit heavier moderation will be in place to keep the place running smoothly.

Change is inevitable, and believe me, I've seen lots of changes take place among the various frequent travel programs I've been a member of since these things started in the early 1980s. Which is why it is nearly impossible to answer this question. FT will continue to evolve to appropriately respond to the changes that occur in the world of travel/programs.

I hope navigating it will be easier, and speed increased. Perhaps the ad-free version will also provide some relief, or some evidence of how FT can be better managed from the user perspective. I know, I certainly would welcome a Spell Check function were any more bells and whistles to be added. But it is hard to say what the hosting technologies themselves will bring in three years time.

The only thing one can be certain of it that FT will still be here, it will look quite different yet will be very much the same. It will continue to serve us well as long as those who have made commitments of their time and information today remain with it, and newcomers keep adding to the pool of informed FTers to contribute fresh insights and ideas.

It will all come back to Managing Growth and shepparding about Change.

Visually, FlyerTalk will be different - as the new BB software comes out & as things are upgraded thanks to the hardworking FT technical staff, the look & feel of the website will be different. I hope that a new logo isn't created, as Cholula suggests may happen. There will be more functionality that we don't even know about & us non-techie people couldn't even fathom. As for the forums, I'm sure new ones will be created & some will be removed. I believe these things go in cycles. I have only been on FT for a few years but in those years, the forums have been consolodated & new ones have been created - the same cycles will most likely happen again. The merger of forums will happen as more airlines merge to be sucessful - the mergers will bring media attention & eventually, this will bring more members to FT. The membership base will most likely hit at least 150K members and the community will grow - which will increase the need & desire to keep this site focused on its core purpose - the discussion of points & miles.

My crystal ball is on loan to another FT'er, so I don't have a lot to say on this issue. But my team of campaign advisors (also known as the voices in my head) tell me that I should say something here.

The only thing I would bet money on, would be the list of current airlines will be different due to bankruptcies and mergers.

Also there will be the enevitable technological improvements (I'm still waiting for my FT flying car).

Beyond that, as for the feel of FT, I really feel that i will depend on who is elected to the Talk Board in the next two elections. There are candidates with very different views on things and with varying abilities to create concensus.

Perhaps a better question would have been: "What is your vision for FT in three years and how will you go about achieving it?"

It's impossible to say.

The internet, society and businesses change almost daily.

The userbase will steadily increase. The amount of people flying will also increase accordingly and those who choose to be informed (ie, not the once a year package traveller) will be looking for more info to make educated business and leisure decisions.

That's where FT needs to be. To capture those people who are looking for more information to help them make better decisions.

Software will change (VB 9.0's is already available and used on some other forums), users will come and go but the point is, 3 years from now, all FT will become is what it needs to become: It needs to become what the users want, and nothing else, because w/o the users, there's no FT.

The power of FT is it's membership, which in 3 years, I believe will continue to grow significantly and likely to involve more non-US/Canadian members. Many more regional forums maybe established, the tools of FT will continue to be developed and become more sophisticated and the amount of information will continue to build. I believe at some point an archive maybe needed to help organize FT info and it's search options would be improved, not just "enhanced. "

If I knew what anything would be in 3 days, let alone 3 years, my brokers would be ecstatic !

The overall functionality won't change a lot, but the appearence may, and if I have any say, I will add graphical charts and matrix's that will show any member how all the frequent flyer programs from each airline stack up, travel credit cards stack up, how airlines stack up, how airports themselves stack up, to name the main ones.

Canarsie will certainly post a thread entitled something like "Who Do You Think Will Post the 10,000,000th Milepost on FlyerTalk — and When?"

Someone will guess that it will be "doc". And they'll almost surely be incorrect.

And this massive rapid growth in FlyerTalk and Inside Flyer will keep Randy so darn busy that he will likely feel somewhat compelled to restore most if not all moderator issues back to the TalkBoard, as he had originally planned!

And Julie will be extremely happy too I'm sure! :)

-Mark

The power of FT is it's membership, which in 3 years, I believe will continue to grow significantly and likely to involve more non-US/Canadian members. Many more regional forums maybe established, the tools of FT will continue to be developed and become more sophisticated and the amount of information will continue to build. I believe at some point an archive maybe needed to help organize FT info and it's search options would be improved, not just "enhanced. "
I kinda agree but it's not just the members, it's the sharing between them that makes FT great. I see FT continuing to evolve as the member's needs change and become more diverse, right now the majority of the discussions are about North American based programs but as the programs grow in the world so too shall FT and the types of forums offered

FT really looks similar now as it did in 2002, so I would not predict a large change in 2008.

The Internet will be unrecognizable as we know it in three years. People will post to FT not by typing, but by talking (posts will be audio/video). Not only that, OMNI posters will be seen and heard screaming into their video-equipped cell phones, all from the seat next to you.

I would hope that FT will remain similar in 3 years - of course with more members - higher volume of postings - a few new forums (not directly related with Miles & Points) - programs being dropped and added.

Like anything else, it will be a slow evolution. Not too much change.