Comments on: Some news about the alma

By: Nilesh

Nilesh — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 18:00:23 +0000

I googled up myself and this post shows in the top 5 results. So I thought to look up pecobians.com again and see how it has fared in the last year. Good and bad, in my opinion.

It has 968 members - GOOD
Only 78 members have more than 10 posts - Bad

Most of the people joined in Jan-Feb of 2005 - Great start
Only 70 folks joined in 2006 - bad

This looks on the right track, but long term sustaining interest is still an issue.

Nilesh

By: Shantanu Goel

Shantanu Goel — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 08:51:26 +0000

Well, atleast it is one of the best attempts till date to bring the PEC community together.
Kudos to these wonderful juniors of ours to make it happen.
BTW, nice blog u’ve got. will keep on visiting…:)

By: Nilesh Chandra

Nilesh Chandra — Sun, 13 Feb 2005 23:28:04 +0000

All I was saying was that this idea has been tried before in various different formats by previous generations of PEC alumni and all undertakings have so far almost always failed.
It doesn’t mean that this particular website will also fail - but the odds are really stacked against it, aren’t they?

While in college, staying in touch with each other seems a no-brainer, a foregone conclusion. Things are not always that easy in reality.

As someone who has been out of PEC for over 5 years, I can say that. Our class has a yahoo group (e-groups were the big thing in 1999). Today, we barely average 2 posts a month and that “high” volume of emails is because every once in a while, someone posts a - I am getting married/ I just had a baby - email and 20 people rush in to reply with their good wishes. Imagine what our traffic will be 5 years from now, after all the marriages are done, after all the children are born!

For the success of any forum, everyone needs to be involved. Just involving 10-15 people form each class of ~300-350 is not enough. Mos people are already in touch with their own little groups of 15-20 friends anyway - they don’t need a new website to help with that!

The problem with any forum is that you need to get EVERYONE to communicate. That almost never happens, because:
1. Most people think they have nothing to contribute
2. Many others assume that other people are not interested in hearing what they have to say
3. If we get past the first two hurdles, every once in a while, someone posts something “perceived” nasty by others and thus begins a war of words. Naturally, this turns-off most other bystanders who slowly get dis-interested and sign-off.

It is incredibly difficult to sustain people’s interest in forums - if you can do it, there is nothing like it.

Good luck!

Nilesh

By: tarunjot

tarunjot — Sun, 13 Feb 2005 17:40:11 +0000

the link is http://pecobians.com/privacy.php

By: tarunjot

tarunjot — Sun, 13 Feb 2005 17:38:32 +0000

@ Nilesh Chandra ..
The site is not about money … profit .. millions .. billions … or anything at all.
Its just for the pecobians ..
[privacy policy - http://pecobians.com/privacy.php

And its not one or two guys who are gonna make a forum popular .. its the users .. their thoughts, posts .. infact the complete community that goes into the making of a “real n happening ” site..

By: Pankaj

Pankaj — Sun, 13 Feb 2005 10:04:59 +0000

Keep trying to throw something at the wall, eventually something will stick :D

By: Nilesh Chandra

Nilesh Chandra — Sun, 13 Feb 2005 06:57:25 +0000

Yet another attempt to create a virtual hangout for PECobians….. While hopefully good-intentioned (we hope they will not collect and sell our email addresses to advertisers!), this (and other previous) attempts all suffer the same intrinsic problem - they lack the ability to sustain interest, nor do they ever gain the numbers of subscribers needed, to turn the community into a “real and happening” thing…..

But wait - isn’t this the same problem that most new ventures also face?
aha! - figure this out and the road to millions and billions is yours!!!!

By: Lord PEC

Lord PEC — Sat, 12 Feb 2005 14:56:35 +0000

Thanks for your support sir.
Really looking forward to seeing more pecobians at the forum.

p.s.
nice blog .. keep it up