The Future of Forums?

[budatalk]

KTBleeding, if I didn't elaborate into technicalities, that doesn't mean that my opinion is ignorant.

Sure there are many things hidden to the future, but most will fall at refining things. You mentioned HTML, CSS, etc. it's correct that they evolve and add a lot of new things, but that doesn't mean that they are all breakthroughs, they are refinements. Only the first idea was a breakthrough.

Social Networking on the other hand is a breakthrough, Forums were a breakthrough at some time. Forums will evolve but will remain forums. In my opinion, with the strong invasion of social networking, forums got the biggest setback, but they proved two things to me:

1- They will always remain, they will evolve, get refined, change in aspect, but remain forums.
2- The quality of forums improved after the emergence of social networking websites. For the simple fact that people who want to waste their and other people's times by silly posting went to social networks, whether people who are willing to discuss more or less seriously stayed loyal to forums. That's a very general opinion, but it still holds some truth.

In the end, what defines a forum? It's a space where people can discuss, with protected anonymity their ideas, where they can elaborate, and most of all, the contents are all archived. Something that neither chatting, social networking, or blogging can provide. And this CONCEPT of forums will always remain, no matter what technology hides.

Moreover, with the increasing alarming voices against personal information diffusion, forums are quite an important refuge, and I wouldn't be surprised to see people "moving back" to forums.