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[Dan222]

Hey guys, I'm Dan. I've been using this website to write stories and read some of yours since 2006. I'm probably what you call a "lurker" since I don't think I've ever talked on this forum. Maybe once. But I see some of your guys' stuff, and I see them tourneys, and I like what I see.

My reason for talking is this. I used to see a lot more activity around this site and I feel like that has all but died off. Idk if there are any members left from when I started using this site, I'd think there's a few of you at least, but I hope you know what I'm talking about. I believe that this is just because our site is pretty unknown to the greater Net community. I think we should change that.

But I would hope someone out there would be able to throw me a bone on this.

Stogies.

[Dan222]

Oh, and hey..read my shit: The Island of Destiny. If you're a good writer, please add to it. I given the authors A LOT of creative liberty to work with so enjoy.

[End Master]

Well when its relevant to a conversation I usually mention the site on the few other forums I go to, I still check to see if our link from wikipedia is still up periodically. If it isn't, I put it back and get into edit wars with the overzealous mods and wait a few months before putting it back up again. (Been awhile since anyone's messed with it though)

I don't know, I'm not really a social networking/Facebook person so if anyone's going to do any serious advertising it'll have to be someone else. I figure my major contribution to the site are the stories mainly because I've randomly discovered through narcissistic google searches some my stuff linked to from sites I've never even visited. So hopefully that's helped somewhat.

If we go by stats like our once frequent member Apoth does, we're in the 16 million range as far global popularity is concerned.

http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/infinite-story.com#

(It's certainly been up longer than 2005)

Now I do remember a time when the global popularity here was in the 1 million range and even the high hundred thousands. Which was better than CYS at one time, but obviously something severely changed. I think one reason might be due to not having a very active group of core writers anymore, along with a trend for people to seek out more "game" elements in CYOAs (because it feels more like a video game I suppose) so those sites are doing better.

Back in the earliest days there was more of a steady group of regular writers. The core was never big, but they usually wrote a lot of stories or at least higher quality stories than average. Some examples would be NCPolice, Morathi and a few others. To me I would think that attracted others (lurkers, wanders, etc) to add on or write their own stores.

Then IS experienced another influx of regular writers which was probably around the time DEP and I showed up. Back then the pair of us were churning out quite a few stories in a reasonable amount of time and that's not even counting some of the older people that were still writing frequently at the time like Jeff.

In time folks like Usoki, Apoth and Ves showed up and there was still a steady supply of core writers.

Nowadays, everyone's gone and nobody has really taken their place. I mean BatCountry is probably the only consistent writer who actually is enthusiastic about the contests and writing. Usoki's about only "old guard" that still manages to put out a new story each year. I mean I haven't gone anywhere and I'm still working on adding on to my own story, but I'm no longer as active as I once was for various reasons. (Though trust me I'd like to be)

The only other reason for a steady drop in activity might be due to all the technical hiccups this place has occasionally had in the past. At certain times the main site has been buggy enough that it logs people out when they try to log in or you just get an error message with a white page (or something similar). The story lists not updating along with other things. The most recent one was the Shape By Force message that was popping up a couple months ago. For a moment I though "Well Sev finally shut the place down."

Considering that sometimes these errors last for months they could have driven away people or at least folks just lurking or wandering through.

Still, I don't think this place is quite dead yet since I do see new additions and new stories coming in.

As for the forums, well those have always been spartan around here. Even during the crazier years we probably only ever had a maximum of ten lively posters give or take a few of the short term posters. (Shame Batcountry wasn't around a few years ago during the more active forum years)

For comparisons to our "competition"

http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/chooseyourstory.com#

http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/choiceofgames.com#

http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/chyoo.com#

So basically if we really want to raise this place's popularity, we're all going to have to write porn and make it downloadable. Dibs on the incest genre.

Oh and congrats on winning NaNo Usoki, looks like you were busy in 2012 what with that and our own contest. (Hey don't accuse me of stalking, alexa displayed the link!)

http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/participants/usoki

[Usoki]

Man, threads like this kinda weird me out. I was in high school when I first joined this site. I would be hard-pressed to think of something on the Internet that I've regularly checked up on. I mean, social media is cyclical, and I was using hotmail before gmail... I think there are a few web comics, tops. And even then, half of those ended/quit/became crap. Weird. Not that I can bitch too much, since I'm in the top 5 youngest regulars list.

Yeah, I'm with End. The technical issues definitely aren't helping things, but as long as there's still some activity, I guess I'm not too worried. There's definitely a difference between "life on the site" and "life in the forums", and that's always been true for whatever reason. This has never been a super busy site, and I think that's why I like it so much. The people we do get, on the whole, are very intelligent and worthwhile people. I'm an elistist prick, and I resent having to play nice with the stupids on sites like Worth1000. Not to mention the odd censorship policies that other places have.

Hah, yeah, I'd forgotten I outlinked the site on my NaNo profile. Thanks. A lot of my recent ideas have been for linear things, so it was nice to get (most of) a big one out of my head and into text.