A feature doesn't carry the same weight as before.  There seem to be a fair number of people who don't look at the front page ever, and apparently more so after the site facelift than before.  Add in the "distraction" that the Q&A section provides and some people that might have spent more time reading posts/commenting come to this section instead.  Overall I think the community is pretty much as it always was, a core group of participants with a much larger group that comes and goes.

I think there are a group of loyalists that perpetuate it. I have made great friends with people I have never met except here in the Rain.

Like any entity the dynamics will shift over time.  There always seems to be a "core" of people who are most active.  Even that changes over time.  It is not the same "core" as when I started back in 2006.  

There are more distractions, in general, these  days with so many choices on where to spend your time...work, life,  technology, social media, streaming, etc.  

I hope AR stays relevant for the long haul.  

I think it might have calmed from years ago, but it's still a favorite of mine....and there are new members who think the same.... 

I find there are many who have no posted here in 1-3 years as I check their post logs. I feel with social media, people are more diversified and we're seeing that show up in the lower numbers. My "you just received 50 views" alerts vary from 1 hour to 3 days and some never get 50 for more than a week.

The Q&A while very informative and a daily for me, seems to be the same 60 commenting. Where are the other 200,000?

I also think some of our core, past and present got too nasty with their comments, while many have been removed by Bob Stewart, a few remain. This election year revealed that.

Good topic. Like business and your personal life there are ups and down. Joe Pryor has a valid point there is diversity in social media competing for your attention. Business has also been very hectic and there are so many hours in the day. I try my best to make AR as a priority but do see some spending more time on other platforms tying to make sure they are visible everywhere! The only constant is change. I still get a lot out of AR and will continue to do so.

I think there are many reasons that things have changed. Many jumped ship for their own WP sites which is understandable. The featured posts are really not feature worthy most of the time either. I understand that there are many posts to sift thru but they seem a little lackluster lately.

In the Daily Drop those features are mostly 'let's sell you something' than from agents writing great stuff.

Constant glitches can also send people to the hills.

The answer is that their is diversity in social media competing for eyeballs. It would be interesting to see some head to head comparisons. 

The Alexa ranking has gotten worse over this year, which would imply there is less traffic.  Anecdotally, yes it seems like there is less participation.

There still seems to be a core group who post, comment, and participate here in the Q and A with new members, too. But overall commenting seems to be less. And there are plenty of other sites that compete for time, as well as some members own WP sites.

I suspect that if you look over time, you will have always found the same group of people being most active in the Rain.

Just like business there are ups and downs.

There is still a lot of useful information about different areas.

It appears to be true to me.

Were it not for the Utah School of Real Estate, there would be no signs of life.

Interesting answers, Dennis Swartz.  I think that, as Liz and Bill Spear said, we are seeing a lot of distractions with the Q&A.  As well, we have gotten busy and many of us are involved in private FB groups because of the ease of use - one page (on FB) and the group is THERE!  Instant gratification, I suppose!

I don't know for certain but as Debbie Gartner answered anecdotally it appears so.   

Dennis Swartz Short of the glitches which can be fixed "Google Juice" has diminished over the last couple of years. Members came and stayed here because their posts got front page exposure on Google. Now you are lucky to find your post at all. I believe people come here for the social aspects of a great community than from a business aspect.

I'm getting 50 views in less than 30 minutes for my daily blog post !

I agree completely with Liz and Bill Spear .

Gee; thanks alot, Dennis Swartz ! Now you've gone and burst my bubble for the day!

There are so many glitches happening now...The scheduler not working, the home page not showing all the comments you receive, and fonts seem to be acting weird...I think is causing some to stay away!

Yes, if inactive members are an indicator.

I do believe as FB evolved, AR slowed down a bit.  Plus, with the changing owners, some felt they needed to distance themselves.  But like anything else, we have a 20/80 rule in play and I don't see that as ever changing.

No, AR is not as popular as it used to be, at all. I stopped blogging for a couple of years because most everything has moved to Facebook. When I need a Realtor referral in another area, there are several FB pages that have all the agents I need and not have to wade thru all the inactive profiles here or the ones who only set up a profile for referrals, but never did anything with their account.  

Things are just different now. I told myself a couple of weeks ago that I was going to try to come here more often again, but we'll see...

I tend to agree with your assessment. Yet, the connections, friendships made, and referrals are still ever present. 

I don't blog here anymore since I keep all my blogging activity centered around my own website.

I feel there are many newer agents out there who don't know anything about AR. These are the same folks who spend the majority of their time on Facebook. I haven't helped either as I haven't actively spread the word with those I come in contact with. This changes today. Thanks for the reminder.

Maybe.

It is what you make it

Dennis Swartz Hopefully not. AR is  good platform to interact with other real estate professionals.

It is more then losing Google juice that is worrysome.  1000s blogs  with lots of featured inclusive and there are just two shown under each agent. Most are through other means than AR like G+..... Out of the 284K who signed up I wonder if there are 200 active ones.

To get people read one's blogs w/o a long tailed search key words should be AR high priority.   In SFBA RF site dumped a blog section now investor start their own blog almost as active.....

Well, I sure do hope not Dennis Swartz!  Yes, I also see many of the same folks commenting and replying, and I personally love it - it's all part of getting to know others who are part of the AR Family, way before I joined! 

I don't think so.

    Times change.

Well perhaps a lot of on line platforms loose popularity over time so its possible.

AR is still alive & kicking hard --- phone rang just the other day with someone finding me on my AR blog ---- so it's popular where I want it to be, within the search engines.

Factor in also now that if we 'reply' to a comment rather than starting a new comment, it only counts as 1 ---- in the past, each comment AND reply to it counted as a separate comment.....so just that change to the platform can make it appear there's less interaction, when in reality it isn't so.

It's not the same rain!

Yes to this observation....

I've returned as an active daily member after a long absence. I am glad to have this medium to discuss & promote my business on. I think it's another good place for people to find you & your listings. I am thankful that active members have been very supportive since I returned, engaging my posts with lots of comments.  I have to say I actually like the current environment better than the old one!

IF there weren't so many spam and no information posts I would spend more time on blogs I think

But on Saturday/Sunday I won't even bother with blog posts with all the spam posts going on

Interest and participation seems to fluctuate. It's good to have at least 2 or more blogging platforms.

Dennis Swartz - I think there are many more posts written nowadays. Which means good posts still get comments but not as many.

I agree with Liz and Bill Spear 

I don't think the site is losing popularity. I think when it started we had a down market and agents had more time to spend on the site. Now everyone is busy, and that cuts into blogging and commenting time. That's just my perspective. 

Can't say, not sure.

People are getting their comments in on the Q& A instead.

New people are joining AR daily, I doubt that it is waning.

I think a lot depends on the day and who's online, of course I haven't been around that long.

I think there are much fewer people here that are active thn most realize.

Today was the first day in forever i saw one of my old posts on the front page, but not a feature. I find it harder to read features now and certainly dont read as many as i used to. I have to say though, i have not spent as much time here any more, it is like no listens to what we need anyway and the true features are only given to a few

Yes,  I think everyone is experiencing some sort of "social media fatigue!"  A

When this network started there were fewer other sites competing with it. Now the Internet is full of options and our lives are busier than ever before. I do think there is less participation than even 2 years ago. 

Maybe  the Rain works well enough that a lot of us have less time to blog because we're out listing and selling houses.

Liz and Bill Spear nailed this one!

There are too many people, there's too much noise and it's all too distracting. Plus there are many new little shiny things for those wanting to use them . . . The Internet Of Things by its very nature is temporary . . . the best we can hope for is something archivable. Or not! LOL