Forums and Bulletin Boards

Forums and Bulletin Boards .. another form of collaboration that takes on interesting forms. I have used forums alot in all different ways. I have used them to post inquiries on various subjects ... waiting on answers from experts or using the world wide knowledge that is availabe for other people also looking for the same thing. Some are so outdated though, why do they sit on the net?? Answer being.. maybe that there is so much available information within the postings that perhaps the host of the forum considered that what was contained within, was a valuable resource to the online community. Forums are used alot in the Education sector, for tutor to student and student to tutor interactions. Students are able to post findings within the forum and other virtual team members are able to interact based on the post.

Forums for those whom are unfamiliar are usually a topic containing a description and following that will be thread relating to the particular topic and then following that will contain messages relating to the thread, mmm a little confusing, for those of us less used to techie jargon. But if you have used them this is old hat.

Public forums are usually hosted for free and then use advertising banners to support their cause.

Bulletin Boards are similar but allow the host of the Board to display particular information that they want the community to see. These seem to go in all different directions .. for example one I visited had everything from career opportunities to weather reports. Both of these rely on constant interaction to keep them vibrant and alive in the web world.

Entering a forum can create it own forms of frustration, these can be anything from a long registration process to having trouble locating the information you require and also logging posts that have no reply. No use interacting with yourself huh!!