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Not so hot ...

Mac User Groups Fade in Number and Influence, but Devotees Press On

FTM: Stayin' alive, stayin' alive ...

I've been advised that The Villages [Florida 'retirement community'] MUG has over 1000 members — lots of meetings with a large number of attendees.

As is the case with so many things, information about technology can be obtained from many on line sources, so face-to-face contact is not always necessary.

The Florida MUG may have booming attendance because of the age of the attendees. Their generational experiences may draw them first to a live presentation than to an Internet search.

Yes, I know many of us in this forum are exceptions to my statement above, but that is just what we are—exceptions, not the norm.

Add to the comment about the availability of online support the ubiquity of Facebook, Google+, Twitter, etc filling many social needs that once were met through MUGs.

I would argue that the phrase and the actuality of "social media" are oxymorons and that most users of same are morons lacking oxygen (and couldn't hold a candle to Nigel Hunt).

That may be true, but doesn’t detract in the slightest from Ira's and Joe’s point: with a registered userbase of over 1 billion, Facebook alone sports enough well-oxygenated users to populate hundreds if not thousands of specialized user groups exceeding in size all the ‘MacFixIts’ in their heydays. And that's only one.

That said, you could argue about searchability and archival access of these social media group efforts, but that’s another topic.

No importa. I just felt like slagging "social media".