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  • Category: IndiaStudyChannel.com
    Points:5

      

    Has the popularity of social media platforms affected ISC membership?

    We have often enough discussed the drop in contributions from current members who are selective about the sections to which they submit content, and about new members joining only once in a while. Various reasons have been given in each of the earlier discussions, and now I wanted to discuss the drastic drop in the number of new members who register, especially youngsters. I was looking back and realized that in my early years here, there were a good number of members who not only joined ISC but contributed with zest even when there were just two or three sections. There were not even any reward programs other than giving a rupee or two for giving a link to an ISC page on other sites and then submitting it here in a section called Links. In fact, we had quite a lot of students who were looking to earn some pocket money, as also retired people and homemakers. They would come here regularly despite the pressures of academic studies, and remain actively engaged in the forum at least, if not other sections.

    Since about five years or so, there has been a really drastic drop in new members signing up. This, despite the fact that the number of sections increased and the admin. introduced a slew of reward programs and cash prizes, as well as contests. I was wondering why youngsters are no longer an active part of ISC. One can count on one hand the number, and that, too, those who are not regular contributors, not even in forum discussions. Is it because of the plethora of social media platforms? Is it that the popularity of Instagram, Pinterest, even WhatsApp, and other messaging services have drawn away the youth? Perhaps they find it more exciting to upload photos, follow influencers and celebrities, chat, and post comments! With practically everyone having a smartphone, there is also the lure of YouTube and OTT.

    Any suggestions on attracting new members, especially the youth, that would help ISC? In fact, college and university students signing up and contributing could really be beneficial to ISC in its expansion to an academics-only portal which is the ultimate goal of the admin.
  • #769477

    Points:5
    This is a serious issue. So, I have to write my views with all seriousness.
    I am submitting my observations very frankly.
    Many years back, in my management courses, I studied a chapter titled 'Brand Positioning'. This is a very important issue at the time of product launching. Although marketing was not my specialisation, I read this chapter properly to get some marks.
    Now, frankly speaking, the positioning of IndiaStudyChannel is faulty. We know that this site has been declared an educational website, but when people open it, they find that this site is not like other educational sites. It does not help students directly in lower classes, in board examinations. The site is not directly helping students in higher education also. The students don't get any valuable input for any entrance test. Nor do they get any guidance for any recruitment-related competitive examination.
    The articles, although informative, do not carry much values after a specific period of time. Forum section is heavily moderated, i.e., it simply does not believe in freedom of expression. Job section has lost its value after Mr. Pramod left and after the sad demise of Mr. Ravishankar.
    Although I have spent more than seven years in this site, I still don't understand the usefulness of Practice Tests and Question Papers sub-sections (which are almost defunct).
    It is quite natural that young people don't find it attractive or useful. To attract new members to this site, the webmasters must re-position this website after a hard thinking, and have to do necessary and drastic modification to this site after re-positioning.

    (I request the management to consider my observations with open mind.)
    (a) Those who have forgotten Noakhali, how can they protest Sandeshkhali?
    (b) Have no fear of perfection - you'll never reach it. ---------- Salvador Dali

  • #769478

    Points:5
    The thread posted by our ME Vandana is showing her seriousness how the youngsters can be attracted to this platform for the mutual benefits of both the members and the ISC platform.
    I think this platform needs some modifications to attract students in the sense how best they can prepare the upcoming examinations right from Board to Degree Level. I wish that our existing members should come up with some articles which could enhance their effectiveness in attempting their questions. Even the youngsters should be encouraged to put up their own points which they would like to sort out for their better performance in the examination. This should be a two way process between the existing members and the student communities to reap maximum benefits of this platform.
    I hope other members, too, would put forward their ideas so as to be useful for the youngsters.

  • #769486

    Points:5
    My answer is yes to some extent. People are more getting interested towards social media and electronic channels. But ISC can think of ways and means to see that students will get attracted to this site.
    I am going through the articles and many of them are about admission procedures and methods of applying etc. only. But there are no good articles about various schools, colleges and other educational institutions. A student who wants to get admitted to a college may like to know the rankings of various colleges and plus and minus points of various institutions. Earlier some attempts were made but nowadays I am not seeing much efforts in that direction. There are many editors but only a few are active. There should be some sections where the students will get useful material related to their studies and competitive examinations. Then only young people may join this site and make use of the site for their benefit which will help ISC to become more popular.
    drrao
    always confident

  • #769489

    Points:5
    The most important thing for a site to be successful and attract a good number of members as well as a good number of views is when it stands out in a niche category. Today there is a stiff competition between the educational sites and they vie with each other and present better formats and better information. In spite of the severe competition, ISC is able to hold its position and I would not say that it is not performing with full potential.
    Changing the getup of a site and its appeal to the visitors requires a complete change in its coding structure and that costs money as well as is a tedious job. Further, an appealing site would not sustain if content quality is not good.
    It is not that only ISC is facing these problems and challenges. In fact many big sites which were at the top for a long time are affected by less membership and reduced views.
    As I am active in some other sites also I have experienced this thing and my pageviews are adversely affected.
    It is also obvious that because of so many social media platforns the attention of the young people is diverted to some extent but the young people having creative mind will still be coming and will be joining ISC as well as in other sites similar to it.
    I feel that it is a temporary phase and things would improve soon. Only thing is we have to maintain the precise content having good quality.
    Knowledge is power.

  • #769496

    Points:5
    There cannot be a straight line single answer for the title question.

    First, there was always a confusion whether ISC is a social media platform. Though many characteristics of ISC gave it a social media taste, the WMs have repeatedly given indication that it is not so. Though the origin of ISC was from a view point of helping in education, for many years, it functioned as a general social media platform with an invisible moral binding and self moderation. It attracted all types of people -different in age, knowledge ,financial status, occupation and career. While ISC had a bent toward knowledge sharing and thus educating, the education ISC imparted was of a wider sense and beyond the academic sense.
    The novices and yearning youngsters got benefit from the experience sharing from the elder members and experts in different fields. The old generation elders got to learn about the latest technology developments, applications and updates from the freshers and youngsters. Thus every member of ISC was simultaneously a student and a teacher in the broad sense of the words. The random visitors got impressed and became members. Thus membership and participation steeply increased.

    It can be strongly said that a large number of ISC members got the initial knowledge and some basic practical uses of content posting, blogging, HTML, SEO etc. from ISC platform only. Many of them have later become successful bloggers having their own blogs and channels. Many ISC members had earned reasonable amounts by way of cash credit from ISC and google ad sense revenue and ad sense revenue from their own channels and blogs.

    This encouraged members to give and spread personal testimonials about ISC and also to introduce new members to ISC.

    All these days, ISC sustained on a unique business model. It is basically run on amateur human capital and content'. Like some IT sector companies, ISC cashed on the energy and enthusiasm of productivity of freshers and youngsters. It also used the time of retired and partly employed members. This went on well.
    However, the law of diminishing utility worked practically, by design or default. Many members who enthusiastically contributed felt that their time and energy spent for content posting in ISC was not properly compensated. This became well evident when they compared with their career/other miscellaneous earnings. Naturally they started tapering their time in ISC. Some longstanding members felt that ISC is consciously making them irrelevant and unwanted by indirectly discouraging them and extra encouraging new and naïve members.(Some veteran members who later disappeared from active participation had mentioned this contextually n their forum discussions, though ISC denied it)

    With the same business model ISC announce of switching to a 'true Academic Portal' . This gave a clear hint to the generalists that they cannot survive in ISC as generalists anymore.
    Slowly one by one they either stopped their activity in ISC or made it just name sake.

    Hence, I feel, the real mistake ISC did here was to continue depending on amateur content posting, but not switching to a professional site with a focused content and infrastructure. While it lost many existing members as narrated above, it did not get new members and visitors as expected because it still continued as an amateur site. People have many alternatives in the target sector, more professionally packaged.

    The situation now is general visitors who are interested in light learning and decent social interaction do not have anything new here; at the same time the new generation students and job seekers do not have anything more here to learn than what is available in their academic realms and in general media sources. It also does not offer professional content in guidance or awareness.

    So either (1) ISC has to rediscover itself as a general content site with a bent toward decency, civility and knowledge sharing with amateur participation as it was or
    (2) it should change and repack itself as a professional site focused on education and career opportunities guidance.
    ISC has to identify and then place itself at the right slot. No meaning in blaming social media.

    I trust my frank view here will be taken in the right spirit. I do not have any personal axe to grind and I am one who always believed and said that the world (real and virtual) is so large that everyone will find their suitable place. ISC too.

  • #769513

    Points:5
    The answer to this thread is difficult to provide because our new youth or students have different tastes. However, we cannot deny that other social media platforms have increased daily due to the popularity of mobile phones and their uses. I have always felt that writing is an art, it comes from one's imagination and inner feeling, if one do not have these, one can't write any content. Today's youth are more into gaining image in social media through making small videos than breaking their head on writing. It is now easier to express their feelings through videos than writing. This is also a reason why people are not much interested in writing.

    To voice out their feelings they have different platforms where they can express themselves in short ways instead of writing 120 words this is what the tweeter is famous for. Today, if any student needs guidance, they will first visit YouTube where their every answer is available.

    Now coming to the ISC, I am too here for such a long time and had never seen such low participation in forums. There were times when you open the forum, there were full of interesting posts by a lot of members. Where they all have gone now? If I say some of them have lost interest, it wouldn't be wrong. It is all serious questions which need to be answered by the admin themselves. Unless we have good contributions, it is hard to say that we can attract new members,

  • #769526

      

    Points:5
    I don't think social media platforms have much to do with decreased membership. This is because when you search for something you will type the word/phrase on the search engine you are using and accordingly you will get the result. Youngsters have become really busy as the competition has increased a lot and they look for content that helps them to stay ahead in the competition. ISC has many sections but when a student searches for something on the internet they look for the relevant content that comes on the first page of the search engine, they rarely will go to the next page unless it's something uncommon. For example, if a student searches for a specific college by giving just the name of the college the first result will mostly be the website of that specific college and if it is related to admission to courses then websites that specifically deal with admissions come first. I have tried searching some of the course-related articles in ISC on Google but in many cases, it was not there on the first two pages. Unless there is an improvement in the rankings in the search engines, the viewership of the articles will not be satisfactory.

    When there are many viewers the probability to register on this site will increase a lot. A message may be displayed on various pages about the benefit of joining ISC, especially for youngsters, which can encourage them to come to this site. Another important thing which I like to mention is the popularity of videos when students search for study materials online. For any course, they look for videos rather than articles which, in general, has reduced the viewership of explanatory articles. Steps have to be taken to improve the rankings in search engines, maybe with the help of keywords and other techniques which the Webmasters feel appropriate. As already mentioned by Jeets, youngsters are more towards making videos than writing articles because expression through videos is more powerful.

    I think a detailed discussion on this topic is essential where every member, especially the students, including editors should express their views so that ISC can improve and can stay ahead in the competition.
    Sankalan

    "Life is easier when you enjoy what you do"

  • #769533

      

    Points:1
    Some really good feedback has come in, especially about the nature of the content, about what information students are looking for. Thank you, really appreciate it. I will be forwarding this thread to the admin. to check out your valuable suggestions and advice.

    On the one hand, some of you are saying we need more articles, but yet continue to focus only on the forum and/or the Ask Experts section! We do have a number of excellent content on the topics of career opportunities, and admission notifications, but I agree that there is sparse information on educational institutions. Even articles on specific courses would be a minefield of information. So when are you all going to start contributing articles on these topics?

    Editors too, as rightly pointed out, have drastically decreased their contributions to various sections, and are not even active in the forum despite my own repeated personal pleas. Just don't know what more I can do to push them!

    There is talk about articles not being compensated enough. I agree and have discussed this with the admin. too on quite a few occasions, but they have always replied with the inability to offer more due to a very tight budget. That is also the reason why we cannot expect professional writers to contribute here.

    As for videos, that is a relevant point made by Jeets. However, having a video section is technically problematic. Tony Sir in fact had once mentioned that when we had a video section, it would make the site very slow and hence it had been removed early on.

    Let us see if the admin. implements some of the suggestions put in here.
    When you make a commitment, you create hope. When you keep a commitment you create trust! ~ John C. Maxwell

  • #769535

      

    Points:1
    Another point I wish to make here- only one or two of us are contributing to valuable sections like schools, colleges, and training institutes, which form the core of this site as an informative education portal. Even when giving update info. the majority of contributors to it are merely providing corrective data of the website, address, and contact details, not making any effort to provide detailed information about the institute. Why? In all these sections, namely, schools, colleges, training institutes, and even for update info. we are giving really very good cash credits. Yet, members stay away from contributing!
    When you make a commitment, you create hope. When you keep a commitment you create trust! ~ John C. Maxwell

  • #769690

      

    Points:5
    It is not only ISC that has been affected by the popularity of the social media platforms. Many sites that thrived on the contributions from members are finding it hard to pull on. In addition to the popularity of the social media platforms, I think the lack of interest among the younger generation to spend time in reading or writing seriously and their search for lucrative avenues also has played a role in this phenomenon.

    We do not get many new members and find that most of those who join do not continue because of the same reason. They don't find any interest in reading lengthy contents and are not interested in writing properly. They opt for capsules. They like to write in short forms. Moreover, they don't like to be interfered with or to be guided. They prefer social media platforms where they have the freedom to write anything without being stopped or corrected.

    Ironically, I also think that the youngsters today might also be feeling that a site that does not charge any registration fees might not be interesting. They entertain the belief that more expensive a product or facility is, better would be the quality and benefits.

    I am of the opinion that ISC has actually grown up to a decent level from where it started. Yes, we may have to adopt a few changes again to suit the new order and to withstand the pressure of competition but I don't think we should compromise on quality.

    I could see some traces of disappointment in some responses above, particularly with regard to strict moderation. But that is the policy of this site and I don't think we should let loose anyone for the sake of maintaining or increasing the number of members.

    As for a few (negligible numbers) senior members not being active now, one or two might have left because they felt that they should be given some leverage in posting as seniors and so should not be interfered much with (special treatment to be precise) which was not a practical possibility and a few others have left either due to ill health or some other compelling commitments. I would like to recall members like Sankaran sir coming up with threads after long gaps saying that he will try to be active here again.

    Then comes the point of earnings not being compensatory to the time and effort being spent here. I do agree that this is a point that the admin has to look into but again, hope many of you will remember a thread raised by Tony sir some time earlier stating the changes in the Google policy and reduction in our overall revenue. We are trying to catch up and it might take some more time to get back to our earlier position. But we, as experienced members can help by remaining active and contributing to the best of our ability to different sections and by encouraging new members to register and be active here.

    We, most of us, have been associated here for long without being concerned much about the monitory benefits. After all it is not just about money. I can name at least a few members who had joined ISC without much idea of grammar or the way of writing and had improved to such an extent that they could almost write beautifully without many mistakes. But then they, I think, chose to keep looking up the ladder for greener pastures and forgot the base without any remorse.

    Let us continue our support to ISC and do our bit as the site is going through a slightly bad patch but is certainly moving towards revival. All the best ISC!
    'Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all'.
    -Aristotle

  • #769692

    Points:5
    From what I find in ISC is that other sections generally require much effort before we can participate in those sections. But Forum is not like that. Anyone can join and participate immediately. But a mediocre knowledge member cannot survive even in the Forum section, which is the most exciting section of ISC. This is because of moderation and other knowledgeful members, who can easily target the new member, who are not that much knowledgable. If he can defend himself, he can survive here and can become a permament member. But if he cannot, the member is lost forever.

    In other social media platforms, no one cares about spelling mistakes, grammar mistakes or any other meaningless sentences. But here, moderation makes members difficult to survive.

    One more important feedback regarding Editors. This feedback they have to accept gracefully. In the name of rationality, most of the editors accept only one view. They used to accept threads supporting one view and delete or lock the threads supporting the other view. Many members have lost interest because of this attitude of edtors. Though editors are also members, they should at least leave their ideology while acting as editors. They should just act as moderators but should not participate in the Froum section supporting one view.

  • #769693

    Points:2
    Bhuvan Sir, you have stated that in other social media platforms, no one cares about spelling mistakes, grammar mistakes or any other meaningless sentences. Does anyone bother about all these in this site? I don't think so.
    (a) Those who have forgotten Noakhali, how can they protest Sandeshkhali?
    (b) Have no fear of perfection - you'll never reach it. ---------- Salvador Dali

  • #769694

    Points:3
    Partha Sir, sometimes at least editors or other members try to correct the spelling mistakes and grammar mistakes. Regarding the meaning, if there is no proper meaning conveyed in the thread, at least members or editors ask to rewrite it meaningfully.
    There may be limitations for the new members, who may not be able to write English properly, which hinders the new member to participate further. Other social media platforms don't have that restriction.

  • #769695

    Points:2
    In my opinion, moderation should be lifted in the Forum section except for adult content and abusive language. The Forum section should be free for opinions like a Market Driven Economy.

  • #769696

      

    Points:5
    There are many reasons (even though there are few more left) already given by members here for ISC's current situation. Almost all of them have given valuable points. I personally Appreciate it. I will give very few.

    As you are aware, ISC was different before (five and ten years ago) compared to these days in terms of activities, performance and revenue generation etc. from different section's contribution, moderation and their valuable contents. Time changes many things quite often. In fact everyone changes quite often (due to natural circumstances) and we blame it on innocent time, cleverly. We are actually supposed to change based on the waves by modifying ourselves to match the needs of the potential searchers based on a major search engine's algorithm or else as you know we would be left behind without any trace-out. Few detail is given below;

    One of the main reasons for slowing down is, depending on 'Cash' earning by each, not only from ISC but almost all text platforms. ISC has in fact increased the revenue sharing for members when compared to the past whereas revenue has reduced from sources like AdSense due to different algorithm. Also, the competitor / commercial platform gains differently and additionally but service platforms like ISC have to depend on one or two max revenue distributors, like AdSense or Third party Ads.

    Beside, other reason to rethink and distant oneself is:

    Website (Webmasters have to invest it for domain / hosting etc. though it is free for Members): Its contribution and content now become like a Cricket's Test Match. Its popularity and revenue slowly reduced after 2015 when the online pattern changed from (Text to Video content) YouTube and other live platform contents / Apps as competitors. Internet data cost / easy access plus cheap devices, later. Online text content still has high potential when compared, and we have to research and use it effectively.

    YouTube (Free platform for each so far with better revenue compared to web): Its contribution and content become like a Cricket's One Day Match - popularity and earning quick revenue compared to website content. Search "How to brush", you will get its YT video and millions of views / lakhs of subscribers for that and benefited by that particular Vlogger / YouTuber. It won't work here on text content. Like that YouTuber's have millions of things to say and produce video content. Short Video from different platform and app is an additional one.

    Apps/Influencer/Crypto/Code/Other platforms (Free platform so far with better revenue for individual and collaboration in shortest period than YT / Web): Its content has become like Cricket's T20 Match - popularity and earning even quicker than YT where youth attracted (this is one of the main reason hard to get them here). Short and Sweet earning if you are expertise in listed categories.

    Not to forget, leaving service minded, many commercial minded (Media associated and other Business investors) slowly came in for the educational category online as a stiff competition. You may know better if you Google the 'education' related keywords.

    Most importantly, today's youth knows App, Code and on, they have apps for almost 'everything' even for educational content from admission to result and on. Majority of them don't want to experience the Test match but the other two platforms mostly, except rare visits to the Web.

    I don't go to websites for Train or Flight booking or Money Transfer etc. - I use Apps (from PhonePe or Paytm etc.) to book these transactions. It helps really for quick action (from anywhere or anytime, just through 'Always on' - Smartphone).

    Today's each ISC member could have earned a few thousands to lakh/s (from AdSense) if the same current text contribution would have done ten years back. Still can do, if interested one can research and learn the search engine's algo update from time to time.

    As a few members' said above, ISC is already and completely trying to change as an educational niche web, it was already a difficult task to transform it, and have to do more to give the required and ample content for all educational candidates' who are searching the latest content online.

    Suggestion: Stated above. To get youth here, the platform has to update itself per their choice and content search on education niche. And, it's a little hard to get them from One Day and T20 type platforms.

  • #769697

    Points:5
    Vandana has made a very important point in one of her responses about members not taking much interest in information updates that is updating the information of schools, colleges, universities, institutions etc.
    I have also observed this and I was trying to contribute there in my humble capacity and I found that there are thousands of schools and colleges and universities and other institutions about whom data is available in ISC but in many of them some minor corrections are required like correcting the name, phone number, website address, university to which it is affiliated etc.
    From the tip of the iceberg I feel that that job is not so easy and will require at least 4-5 members continuously working on it. Points and cc being provided for that work are also adequate as per my view. The job of correcting information regarding the institutions is not very tough but it may take some time and if members spare some time I think they can do it with much ease compared to writing a forum post or answering a question in ask experts section or writing an article.
    So, I will also request members to consider that option which will update that vital information in ISC as well as bring cash credits to us.
    Knowledge is power.


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