Internet as the rest of our everyday life never stands still. What was new and unusual yesterday may become absolutely old-fashioned and even vulgar tomorrow. Once upon a time internet users were very enthusiastic about the new phenomenon that allowed them to post messages and comment on other messages on some websites. The bulletin board systems (BBS) which allowed them to do it enjoyed high popularity and were seen as useful and efficient. Message boards and forums on these BBSes functioned in many of the same ways as today's internet forums, but on a much more basic level and using different protocols. Members could leave comments or advance a discussion, but simple things like graphics or a point & click interface were not yet implemented. Usually, only a single person could be logged on at a time: Real-time discussion became possible and widespread only shortly before the internet replaced the entire system of BBSes.

As the time passed and the internet was getting more common these communities evolved into a global network. The forums were increasingly adapting a new software which was developed to enhance functionality and improve visual design. Thus, a completely text-based delayed messaging system turned into real-time debates with rich media objects like pictures, music, and video. But despite the latest technologies used in building new forums they seem to be declining today and the public attention is more and more shifting to the social media. We decided to make a brief review of the most popular message boards on the web and share our observations.

Leaders of the industry

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. China also has many millions of posts on forums such as Tianya Club. The United States does not have any one large forum, but instead several hundred thousand smaller forums, the largest of which are Gaia Online, IGN and GameFAQs.

2channel was launched in 1999, and it has gained significant influence in Japanese society, comparable to that of traditional mass media such as television, radio, and magazines. As of 2008, the site generates revenue upwards of ¥100 million per year for creator Hiroyuki Nishimura. It is managed and operated by PACKET MONSTER INC, a company based in Telok Ayer, Singapore.

The website's scale and management style are unique. It has more than 600 active boards (Japanese ita) such as "Social News", "Computers", and "Cooking", making it the most comprehensive forum in Japan. Each board usually has thousands of specific threads, such as "Coming election in Tokyo: 4th vote", "P4 vs. Athlon: overheating 51 times", and "Best wheat for making Pizza: 3rd slice".

2ch operates on innovative forum software which is a major departure from 1980s bulletin board systems or 1990s forum software such as vBulletin. Most importantly, nearly everything is done anonymously and voluntarily. A posting in a thread will either "age" (bump, from Japanese "ageru", to raise) or "sage" (not bump, from Japanese "sageru", to lower) its position in the thread list; "sage-ed" posts have no effect on its position. Threads may be "sage-ed" if the thread is disliked, or to keep it from cluttering the main thread list, or to prevent idle browsers from flooding in and trolling the thread at the top of the list.

Each thread is limited to 1000 postings at maximum, and a new thread must be opened (by some anonymous user, self-elected during discussion) to continue discussion. This prevents the rotting of old threads and keeps active topics refreshed. It also saves bandwidth, which is a major concern on a forum as large as 2ch. Old threads are moved to a paid archive, then eventually deleted.

Tianya Club is one of the most popular Internet forums in China. It was founded on 14 February 1999.

Politicians have used Tianya Club to campaign, answer questions from constituents, and gather grassroots support.

It has also been involved in Chinese news stories such as a revival of the 1995 Tsinghua University poisoning story about Zhu Ling.

Tianya Club is the exposure place of hoax Hanxin. It is also the original exposure place of 2007 Chinese slave scandal.

Tianya Club is also famous for its Social Search, which also named "renrou" search. For example, during January 2008 of Edison Chen photo scandal, the Tianya Club users search out the involved girl star by their shadow-photo in newspaper.

Gaia Online is an English-language, anime-themed social networking and forums-based website. It was founded in 2003 as Go-Gaia.com, but the name was changed to GaiaOnline.com in 2004 by its owner, Gaia Interactive. Gaia originally began as an anime linklist and eventually developed a small community, but, following a statement by founder Derek Liu (username "Lanzer"), the website moved towards social gaming. It eventually became the forum-based website it is now. Today, over a million posts are made daily and it is visited by 7 million unique users each month. Gaia also won the 2007 Webware 100 award in the Community category.

Users of the site, known as Gaians, create a customizable avatar and a customizable virtual home for which they can purchase items using what is called gold. This is given to users after playing games or posting inside the forums; the site also rewards users every day with random gold or items with the Daily Chance. In July 2007, Gaia released Gaia Cash that can be bought at Rite Aid, Wal-Mart, Target stores, 7-11, Speedway SuperAmerica, or directly from Gaia itself.

IGN (an acronym for the former Imagine Games Network) is a multimedia news and reviews website that focuses heavily on video games. Its corporate parent is IGN Entertainment, which owns and controls separate sites such as GameSpy, GameStats, Rotten Tomatoes and AskMen.

IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites, or "channels", each occupying a subdomain on IGN and covering a specific area of entertainment. Game-related channels include PC Games, Wii, Nintendo DS, Xbox 360, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PSP, Xbox Live, Wireless, Retro, and iPhone games. In addition, IGN has channels covering movies, music, gear and technology, sports, television and more.

Founded in September 1996 as Imagine Games Network, IGN began as five individual websites within Imagine Publishing: N64.com (later renamed IGN64.com), PSXPower, Saturnworld, Next-Generation.com and Ultra Game Players Online. In 1998, the network consolidated the individual sites as system "channels" under the IGN brand. Next-Generation and Ultra Game Players Online were not part of this consolidation; UGPO dissolved with the cancellation of the magazine, and Next-Generation was put "on hold" when Imagine decided to concentrate on launching the short-lived Daily Radar brand.

As of June 2005, IGN claimed 24 million unique visitors a month, with 4.8 million registered users through all departments of the site In September 2005, IGN was acquired by Rupert Murdoch's multi-media business empire, News Corporation.

GameFAQs is a website that hosts FAQs and walkthroughs for video games. It was created in November 1995 by Jeff "CJayC" Veasey and was bought by CNET Networks in May 2003. It is currently owned by CBS Interactive. The site has a database of video game information, cheat codes, reviews, game saves, and screenshots, almost all of which is submitted by volunteer contributors. The systems covered include the 8-bit Atari platform through modern consoles, as well as computer games. Submissions made to the site are reviewed by the site's current editor, Allen "SBAllen" Tyner.

GameFAQs hosts an active message board community, which has a separate discussion board for each game in the site's database, along with a variety of other boards. Since 2004, most of the game-specific boards have been shared between GameFAQs and GameSpot, another CNET/CBS website. The site also runs a daily opinion poll and tournament contests.

Alexa reports decline

Once very popular and heavily ‘populated’ by internet users these forums are getting more and more deserted. Their ranking with Alexa is falling while pageviews either remain unchanged or drop rapidly.

2channel

Alexa traffic rank for 2ch.net dropped 21 points.

Over the three month period global pageviews of the site increased just 0.51%. Daily pageviews per user for 2ch.net during 3 months rose by 2.9%.

Tianya Club

Alexa traffic rank for tianya.cn increased 14 points. 

Still, percentage of global pageviews for tianya.cn dropped slightly (by 0.4%). Its daily pageviews per user dropped even more (by 14%).

Gaia Online

Alexa traffic rank for gaiaonline.com dropped by 189 positions!

Percent of global pageviews on gaiaonline.com decreased by 15% over a 3 month period. Its daily pageviews per user increased 1.5% during the 3 months.

IGN

Alexa traffic rank for ign.com dropped 29 points over a 3 month period.

Percent of global pageviews on ign.com decreased 15.2%. Daily pageviews per user for ign.com contracted by 8.7%.

GameFAQs

Alexa traffic rank for gamefaqs.com decreased by 61 points.

Percent of global pageviews on gamefaqs.com contracted by 22.08%. Daily pageviews per user for gamefaqs.com dropped by 5.2%.

Where do we go from here?

What makes internet forums decline in percentage of users views as well as in their rankings? The data cited above is just a piece of the overall picture that shows internet forums are no longer as demanded as ever before. Advertising on the forums no longer brings desired revenue as who will be targeted by these ads if more and more people are abandoning message boards for new social media sites. Some observers suppose that internet forums will likely adopt many features of social media and they may even look like social marketplace.

One author notes: “The future of internet forums may even involve utilizing many of the features and options available currently in social media. Most likely, this will include: RSS feeds of individual user's posts, new ways of incorporating content across multiple platforms, and enhanced community features like user-led groups and networks. Many forums even include a market-place where members can conduct business in a semi-structured environment. With all of these potential evolutions and adaptations, it is likely that the internet forum will be with us for a long time to come: Unless of course, the social media sites get so good at being like forums that social media is the forum's next evolution.”