I'm honestly not sure if this is good news or bad news. However, congrats to Kyle, being acquired is no easy feat.
Now for some speculation:
My guess is that Forrst wasn't growing as much as it used to or stopped growing all-together. Looking at the alexa numbers, its popularity peaked in the middle of 2011. Pageviews took a huge dive, which is extremely alarming.
Maybe this is Kyle's attempt for a turnaround, or he simply realized a site can only go so far with limited resources. Obviously Alexa isn't 100% accurate, but it gives a decent estimation on where the site is trending.
I've been visiting Forrst on and off from its early days and I have this impression that Kyle was struggling with shaping the community into what he wanted it to be. Posting guidelines were updated on (what seemed like) a monthly basis, there's a limit on how short a descriptive part of a post should be, there's a ban on posting "angled photos of one's screen", etc. These are superficial things that are meant to funnel the community into something that it doesn't really want or can be. The moderation was all too visible on the site, and this is never a sign of a healthy ecosystem. Way too many aspiring 13 year old creative designers and javascript ninjas. There's really no reason for an experienced designer or a developer to hang around there. It's not that the site didn't have a good idea behind it. It's that the community needed reboot. Perhaps this acquisition is going to do just that.
Seconded completely. I had an account for about a month, I think actually in mid 2011 (funny that). Very few people who were accomplished seemed to have time for it. Felt like nearly all of the posts were of a please-review-my-first-project nature. Also, despite the attempted parity, designers outnumbered the developers so substantially there were only three or four developers on there participating consistently.
I'm grateful Forrst explored the curated social network space, but unless it were done better I don't think I'll have time for it again. I think you could create and sustain a designer/developer site like that, but probably not with unchecked positive growth. I would like to see more curated communities, but the curation on Forrst doesn't seem to go far enough. You can either release a site to the world or keep it private to your friends; the space between those two extremes is troublesome.
Valid points. It seems like the more seasoned designers are over at dribbble. It also seems like the more seasoned developers end up on the stackexchange network trying to soak up knowledge.
Maybe there are more newbies trying out design and programming than there used to be. Might be a good idea to market to them directly?
I totally agree, I really wish Forrst would do something to carter to not only the beginner developer but also the more advance developer. Maybe if there was a way to actually rate users skills then you could filter out all the posts by beginners.
Please don't do things to make titles stand out, like using uppercase or exclamation points, or adding a parenthetical remark saying how great an article is. It's implicit in submitting something that you think it's important.
Now for some speculation:
My guess is that Forrst wasn't growing as much as it used to or stopped growing all-together. Looking at the alexa numbers, its popularity peaked in the middle of 2011. Pageviews took a huge dive, which is extremely alarming.
Maybe this is Kyle's attempt for a turnaround, or he simply realized a site can only go so far with limited resources. Obviously Alexa isn't 100% accurate, but it gives a decent estimation on where the site is trending.