Michelle - nice drop that Yellowtail. Enjoy several I say.
Jon - thanks for your message. I completely understand that Joe would only want to fund and support social media channels that maximise his market and keep people informed and engaged as much as possible. It's been great of Joe to fund this T2J "stream of consciousness" for such a long time and I enjoy it every day.
As a "Joe-consumer" I think a fan forum is an important channel that can't be replicated by Facebook, Google+ etc. If Joe decides to continue to fund T2J I do believe it needs to be upgraded into an easier to use format, so that topics can be easily identified and contributed to by those who want, and where forum members can message and chat.
The key ingredient though, is if Joe can spare the time to contribute to it. Understandably, he is probably flat out all the time either working, or promoting his work, or taking care of business. Facebook, Twitter, tumblr and any other social media sites do the job in terms of pushing information to the consumer. A forum, however, is where topics of discussion can be separated (which you can't do very well on Facebook) and threads easily read, and he can interact with members directly and exchange thoughts, feedback and comments. And that's what cements the relationship with fans and keeps them sticky.
Surprisingly, for someone so verbose and eloquent, Joe's written communications in social media are incredibly brief. I think the longest post I saw from him was about his fellow Squares band member who passed away. So I see the possible reluctance here for Joe to become more active in a forum when he may not feel comfortable with the written stuff, and he is probably starved for time.
Even if Joe can't contribute much in the way of posts, a forum still makes a big contribution to growing his brand. For example, I really like the Satriani-fr.com forum which is in both French and English. We chat about all things Joe and share information in a nano-second as soon as it's posted to FB, Twitter etc. and then dissect it to death :-)
Anyway, that's my $0.02.
Merry Christmas to all!
Skippy
