An Internet forum is a facility on the World Wide Web for holding discussions, or the web application software used to provide the facility. Web-based forums, which date from around 1995, perform a similar function as the dial-up bulletin boards and Internet newsgroups that were numerous in the 1980s and 1990s. A sense of virtual community often develops around forums that have regular users. Technology, computer games, and politics are popular areas for forum themes, but there are forums for a huge number of different topics .

Internet forums are also commonly referred to as web forums, message boards, discussion boards, discussion forums, discussion groups, bulletin boards (but see also dial-up bulletin boards), fora (the proper Latin plural) or simply forums.

Culture

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Internet forums are prevalent in several developed countries. In terms of countable posts, Japan is far in the lead with over two million posts per day on their largest forum, 2channel. The United States does not have any one large forum, but instead several hundred thousand smaller forums, the largest of which are GameFAQs, Gaia Online, and IGN. Other countries such as China, the Netherlands, and France are also home to hundreds of independent forums. Some countries such as Finland and Sweden do not have many prevalent forums despite having open and easily available Internet access. As of yet no study has been done on the prevalence of forums in countries around the world. It is also dubious as to whether any country has its own fora, as - especially in the English language - contributors to a forum often come from outside the country in which the forum is hosted. There is often not a 1-1 relationship between languages and countries: for example, English language fora are contributed to by people all over the world, whilst Japanese language fora are likely to be contributed to only by Japanese people, but Japanese people also contribute to English language fora, so there is no 1-1 relationship between Japanese language fora and Japanese people contributing to fora.

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NPR Topics: Technology

Viacom May Soon Have Your YouTube Password
Fri, 04 Jul 2008 16:00:00 -0400
A judge ordered YouTube to hand over the log-on names and the Internet addresses of its users to media giant Viacom. The matter is stirring up major privacy concerns.
We Know What You've Been Watching on YouTube
Fri, 04 Jul 2008 13:13:00 -0400
A court has ordered Google to turn over a database that links users to every video they've watched on the popular Web site YouTube. Jennifer Urban, director of the University of Southern California Intellectual Property and Technology Law Clinic, says the ruling has big implications for online privacy.
Twitter, What Are You Doing? Co-Founder Tells All
Thu, 03 Jul 2008 10:51:00 -0400
Twitter.com has so many new users that the Web site keeps crashing. Meanwhile, Twitter engineers are taking popular features away for retooling. It's a painful process, but co-founder Biz Stone has a plan.

L.A. Times - Technology News

Digital download model puts song exposure above sales
Sat, 05 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700
Ruling against YouTube worries privacy advocates
Fri, 04 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700
'In Their Boots'
Fri, 04 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

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