What Happened?
As you all know, BOM has undergone some significant changes recently. The BOM forums have been shuttered, and the Box Office Derby is no more.

As many of us did 7 years ago, the orphaned users of BOM have taken it upon themselves to keep their community going by attaching a new forum to BOT. Knowing how it feels to be displaced from BOM, I reached out to Shawn offering any help or advice he may need. There was very brief talk of a merger, but ultimately, the displaced BOM users wanted a home of their own.


What's It Mean For WoKJ?
First, we need to continue to remain supportive of BOT. We've all been through many of the challenges that now await them. They have every right to their own home, and our survival does not have to come at their expense, nor vice versa. I wish them well, we will continue to offer our support, and it's our hope we can find common goals in the future.

With that said, we continue to look to how we can improve our home. As you all know, one of the biggest challenges sites like WoKJ face is a stagnant user base. We fight, members leave, members lives take them away, people opt to read rather than post, and our community shrinks. The only way to combat this, is growing a public front to the forum, becoming more than just a forum. This provides an avenue to draw new people in, to find people with common interests we can connect with and learn from, thus fighting away the dank smell of festering conversation.


How Do We Do That?
Last year, WoKJ opened the book on it's new main site. In the year since it opened, we're on pace for over 550 user created articles. A huge thank you goes out to everyone who's taken the time to share your thoughts and opinions on the main site. The main site has NEVER been more successful, and we want to continue improving upon it. If you haven't tried it out yet, we'd love to see you out there!

We're always interested in your feedback, so please don't hesitate to stop by the Beta forum and drop a comment. We also have some ideas of our own, the first of which is a minor update to the main site coming next week.


What's in this update?
The update you'll see next week allows the integration of your main site profile with Facebook and/or Twitter. Once integrated, you'll be able to send your articles and babbles to Facebook or Twitter. More information will be provided when the update is rolled out.


WoKJ Derby
Following the social integration update, I'm happy to announce we are going to work creating a new WoKJ Derby. We plan to launch the new derby the first full weekend of January (6-8). The new derby will feature quarterly prizes, as well as an overall yearly prize. Please stay tuned for more information in the coming weeks. Until then, get the word out and help us let everyone know!


In Closing
We're excited. We have a lot planned, and we want you to be a part of it. Share your feedback, support the main site and those who are kind enough to lend their time to writing. We're proud to give this community a voice, it's our goal to amplify it. This is a voice that should be heard, and we hope you'll all keep sharing.

Huzzah!

Chip, I know you've mentioned something in the past: If and when Google+ releases API's for similar style integration, we will look into that as well. We'll also likely consider adding a +1 button in some fashion to the site.

For now though, just Facebook and Twitter.

Sounds great, Karl.

I actually had no idea about the BOM stuff. Too bad.

Putting the finishing touches on the integration update, waiting for Crux to make one final tweak, may be launching tomorrow!

Ant colony Googol is boarding the Titanic. The awe is overwhelming.

Don't ever leave Argos, I'd miss you.

As already said it is really bad to hear about BOM and good to see that BOT has taken over the forums. Best of luck to Shawn for that

This changes on our site sounds amazing. I haven't been on BOM forums ever (alright maybe I was there for one day), but I still find our site to be much less barbaric, but then we are a smaller group as well with less threads and even lesser conversations which makes the forums dull at times for new members. I hope the main site could really impress more people.

While I am not the only one writing the monthly issues, I would love to put forum threads in my Movies 2011 series which are generally the overview of upcoming movies in the months, I think that will help us a lot with getting even better attention and new people. We can do this for all the articles, wherever possible.

Really excited for the Derby Karl.

+1