I'm often surprised to see the chat room on this site empty every time I enter. Why do you suppose that is? Only twice have I ever went in and found just one other person.

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Sorry to say that the heyday of chat are now behind us.

When you think of M2M at AOL.com, IRC rooms, etc... that culture is now pretty much a matter of past.

It is either FB, Craig's, dating portals, Grindrrr (or similar) or you go real life cruising. Hanging out to chat was cool but rather inefficient...

KD

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I so totally agree about the inefficient aspect of the chat thing. I think many man just gave up after so much BS. My personal hope is they're all headed back out into the real world. Ah, the pleasures and hot sex one can derive from the real world!

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I miss the old MSN chat rooms, I met some really nice guys there that I wouldn't have otherwise. I'm still in the closet so I can't use face book or in public, so its pretty hard to find another guy.a
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I love the chat room but so rarely see anyone in there.

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Maybe Ill see you there, we should try to get a group going on Friday.
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We should try to get a group going on Friday
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I always check - but I have never seen anyone in the chat room.

Even the message boards are dead lately.

:-(

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It's pretty obvious that participation here has declined steadily over the years. My first thought was that people are moving to other online pickup venues, like facebook, IM, etc., or maybe guys today don't need to go online at all in these days of universal enlightenment regarding alternative sexuality. However...

I belong to another site similar to CFS that has a much finer granularity in terms of geographical forums. The decline is also noticeable there but the decline is least in the forums that cater to college age guys. The majority of posts in the forums I check out are in fact from college age guys. You would expect that those guys would be the least affected by old mores & most into new hookup venues and not need to use an old fashioned medium like message boards. But no.

It is a puzzle.

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Interesting, pike, that I've lived long enough to read someone refer to message boards as 'old fashioned'! My assumption is that like just about everything in our lives, things come in and out of style all the time. We stay relevant by providing unique Sex Listings information, but I know that we're not often on the radar for much of the younger generation (the crowd you've noticed sticking around in other venues). CFS is simply not 'trendy' these days. But that, too, can change!

This development isn't so much a failure on our part as it is an acknowledgement of this reality: younger gay guys are actually intimidated by the cruising culture. They tend to express that by putting it down, not admitting the truth: they're scared of the unknown. Guys usually come to cruising AFTER they've at least reached their late 20's if not later. Thus it is safe to say we'll end up 'getting them' but it will come AFTER DList, etc.

When we recently made some design improvements, I almost removed the chat option entirely. Still may remove it. But then again, I know for some men it is important, but as others have acknowledged, it isn't popular here and, honestly, it never has been.

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i've been in quite a bit lately, and nobody ever goes in.

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I go in there sometimes, nobody is in there. We should make a concentrated effort to get people in there. :P

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I would love to see some activitiy there -

I don't think there is enough traffic on the site lately and every time I check it is empty in the chat rooms.

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Our chat rooms have been empty for several years. Our crowd just doesn't like the concept or maybe they don't like the options we offer. I find sex-based chat rooms, universally, to be far less busy these days.

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Text-based chatting has declined, and continues to do so, as webcams become ever-more pervasive and phones/tablets become a more common access platform. Carrying on a text chat via a small form factor device is a pain for most people (unless you're a die-hard with "mad texting skillz"). The way things are trending, the keyboard as we know it may be all but extinct by the end of the decade.

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