BodyPainter Rich wrote:
I tried to get some traction for live events... so that people could meet each other more in person and MM could become more of a community online AND in real life.

I think it would have been powerful as a way to create more of a creative "family" and it would also be a great place for people to meet and talk about the problems in the community in person...

... I think MM would be stronger if they had given more people a chance to really get to know each other and also given more emphasis on fresh content and active members rather than giving higher paying members all the important tools for visibility.

When MM was in it's infancy we had similar meet and greets here in LV and they were pretty successful.
I think the meets created a buzz and even more people joined up.
Those meets are long gone, event though almost everyone is still a member of MM,

Nowadays there's MEETUP.com which has a bunch of photography/modeling groups here in LV and across the nation.
Surprisingly very few of those group members are MM members, and many of those people don't even know MM exists.

Tony From Syracuse wrote:
I have a question for someone who is familiar with instagram. I joined it one day just to check out some models pages which I followed and was shocked to find out..somehow it found my brother and thru some sort of linking feature alerted him I joined instagram and he sent me a message just to say hello welcome to instagram! and followed me...on top of that he saw all the stuff I was following. theres lots of people with my last name and he lives in another city.

cripes sake man is the algorithm that intelligent that that's just the way it works? it skipped over all the other people with my name in my own city...and found my brother in another. can I create some online handle not my name and avoid that?

All those internet based companies spy on you without you even knowing. Because the laws allow them to do so. Especially on portable smart devices with the so-called apps. Tons on spy codes in there that you have no clue what it does and when.

Tony From Syracuse wrote:
I have a question for someone who is familiar with instagram. I joined it one day just to check out some models pages which I followed and was shocked to find out..somehow it found my brother and thru some sort of linking feature alerted him I joined instagram and he sent me a message just to say hello welcome to instagram! and followed me...on top of that he saw all the stuff I was following. theres lots of people with my last name and he lives in another city.

cripes sake man is the algorithm that intelligent that that's just the way it works? it skipped over all the other people with my name in my own city...and found my brother in another. can I create some online handle not my name and avoid that?

It sees your contacts.

Scott Murphy Photo wrote:
I have been on MM for over 10 years (you can check my profile if you doubt me) and in this 10 years I have seen a steady decline in the number of quality photographers and models on this site. It has become quantity over quality. I do a lot of model portfolios, many from leads I get on this site and I have to say, having used models from many different parts of the country, that this site is filled to the rim with "wannabees" on both sides of the camera. People who call themselves models but are hardly serious about doing it as a profession, either full time or part time and "photographers" whose work, to be honest, is just plain terrible.

It does not bother me if another photographer may think that my photography might not be to a quality that they expect of a member of Model Mayhem.  It also doesn’t bother me that I may never meet the standard and expectation of another photographer.

What is important to me is that as a MM member I have the same opportunity to view, communicate and learn from the other creatives (photographers, models, stylists, etc.) around me who are capable of producing excellent work.

My goal is to improve my level of photography to a point where other local creatives may one day start asking me to work with them, rather than the other way around.

I do not expect professional models to do TFP with me. I’m happy to work with the wannabees, or people like myself, who just want to experience the FUN and EXCITEMENT of doing something creative together!

PhillipM wrote:
I'll be bugg'n out of here soon.

And yes, I won't let the door hit me in the ass on the way out.

Not much of a point having a MM account.

No grudges, but it's time.

I see your still active. Hmmm.

Tony From Syracuse wrote:
I have a question for someone who is familiar with instagram. I joined it one day just to check out some models pages which I followed and was shocked to find out..somehow it found my brother and thru some sort of linking feature alerted him I joined instagram and he sent me a message just to say hello welcome to instagram! and followed me...on top of that he saw all the stuff I was following. theres lots of people with my last name and he lives in another city.

cripes sake man is the algorithm that intelligent that that's just the way it works? it skipped over all the other people with my name in my own city...and found my brother in another. can I create some online handle not my name and avoid that?

I did a google search for hearing aids for my friends elderly mother... and lo and behold, I have received "customized" ads on Instagram and Facebook for hearing aids.

This happened a for a few searches, now, when I am doing a search for someone else, for something I just want to look up, etc., I am using DuckDuckGo.com as my search engine, which anonymizes my search and I am not getting any of those feedback ads.

If you have a Facebook account and you are linked to your brother, Instagram will recognize it, because FB owns Instagram for a while now and share their databases.

Instinct Images wrote:
In 2014 MM had 290,000 users that had been active in the last 90 days. By Aug 2016 it was 206,000. Today it's 118,729. The trend is obvious.

In addition, the rate of new users has dropped substantially. From June 2014 to Aug 2016 MM added an average of 4,615 accounts per month. Since Feb 2017 when MM hit 1,000,000 "active" (LOL!) users the rate has dropped to an average of 1,741 new accounts per month. There have been 222,813 active accounts in the last 365 days. Down about half from 2016.

I can't help but wonder how much of the decline is due to social media and how much is due to the changes made to MM such as not allowing out of network messages.

I think the questions you asked are legitimate. Who ever now owns MM is going to ride this dying horse till the end. The only thing I use it for is the travel notices. The revenue stream is still probably pretty good. The current owners don't see a need to put anything new into the platform. Just let it ride out.