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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Message Boards - Twitter Search

What day did you start injectable? - SheKnows Message Boards http://tinyurl.com/ylhuxvo
michelyvcc (Michele Holmes) Thu, 03 Dec 2009 08:11:47 -0000
What day did you start injectable? - SheKnows Message Boards http://tinyurl.com/ylhuxvo
AskMen.com Message Boards :: View topic - dropping weight and... http://tinyurl.com/yet7sxd
claud03m (Claudette Leblanc) Thu, 03 Dec 2009 07:47:18 -0000
AskMen.com Message Boards :: View topic - dropping weight and... http://tinyurl.com/yet7sxd
enough of this show - truTV message boards http://tinyurl.com/yenchur
n0wih11 (Willa Bautista) Thu, 03 Dec 2009 07:45:29 -0000
enough of this show - truTV message boards http://tinyurl.com/yenchur
Any tips regarding wt gain? - Parenting Message Boards - Parenting ...: Any tips regarding wt gain? General Pre.. http://bit.ly/5H7srl
FamilyManBlog (Travis Phelps) Thu, 03 Dec 2009 07:36:13 -0000
Any tips regarding wt gain? - Parenting Message Boards - Parenting ...: Any tips regarding wt gain? General Pre.. http://bit.ly/5H7srl
@otnotes I'm learning slowly. It is interesting though.Reminds me of the internet in the early 90's when there were a lot of message boards
OT_Kate (K Ward) Thu, 03 Dec 2009 06:52:22 -0000
@otnotes I'm learning slowly. It is interesting though.Reminds me of the internet in the early 90's when there were a lot of message boards
@cleolinda Just saw that New Moon in 15 is being pimped over on the Kristen Stewart IMDB message boards http://tinyurl.com/yk77o2v
JustShireen (Just Shireen) Thu, 03 Dec 2009 06:49:13 -0000
@cleolinda Just saw that New Moon in 15 is being pimped over on the Kristen Stewart IMDB message boards http://tinyurl.com/yk77o2v

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