In the early days of the computer and the internet, before the emergance of instant messaging, blogs and socail networks there were fourms, where people could discuss  anything the want with anyone in the world. It was a great consept because people could help each other,  share ideas and have a discussions with people around the world! However in this new web 2.0 world these general-use, are no longer the best method of communicating with people on the internet.

In these modern times,  people use social networks to communicate and micoblogging. For example, if I wanted to know what program I should use for Twitter on my Mac, I could just put it out on my Twitter feed and then assign a hash tag #twitterappmac and then search and find everyone’s results. This is much better than having an additional web account, and  having to go through a confusing forum interface. People now live on social networks that allow you to do many things and make them think forums are no longer worthwhile.

The only type of forum that I believe still has some merit is a forum with a very specific purpose, like a specific piece of technology or a specirfic operating system. This is in fact how the Linux community communicates because development of Linux is very community driven and it also serves as community-driven support because they allow users to help each other troubleshoot. One of the best forums is Internet Tablet Talk which is a forum all about the Maemo Internet Tablets made by Nokia. This is a thriving community of Maemo users and still keeps itself viable.

The forums that let you talk about what ever you want are now a thing of the past and the only type of forum that will be able to become sucessful is one that focuses on a single product and because of that has a very focused topic and has more potential of getting a dedicated user-base because they are using it to learn not just for simple entertainment.  Forums for the most part are no longer valid and are better replaced by social networks.