Message Boards and Forums--Still Relevant
One of the oldest forms of online social media is the message board. I'm sure that many younger users of social media would disagree that forums/message boards/groups are not social media as it has been defined by Facebook, Twitter, et al.
However, I view online social media as any place where people can gather to exchange information, ideas, images, and share experiences. Message boards also have their own rudimentary version of curation; it is not as immediate and user-friendly as Instagram or Pinterest, to be sure. However, the searchable messages, file folders, and photo albums of the richer forums (think: Yahoo Groups) are most certainly the antecedents of the sharing and life-casting that we do on their modern descendants.
The Yahoo Group I run has been in place since June of 2005. It has nearly 5,000 members, averages at or over 1,000 moderated messages a month, and large numbers of photos and files the members can access. The Group recently passed 50,000 messages posted and the archives contain all posts in the history of the Group (unless deleted by the poster or moderator) in a searchable format. This is a highly-focused, very specific Group, yet is very active. Many sub-cultures and specialized interest discussion groups still rely on this hoary, old, but effective system to connect with like-minded people.
There is still value in the 20-year old forum/message board/group format. It should be recognized as part of the biosphere of the social media environment and-when possible-linked to its flashier, more in-the-moment relatives. Remember, with the advent of internet alternatives telephone chat lines were thought to be dead, but they have returned and are still part of the landscape. Don't underestimate older internet social media that still has a role to play, and to ignore them is to miss opportunities.
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