Being Social Online

Since the revelations about how Facebook has been using people’s data, social networking has become more of a hot topic in the news and in general technology discussions. One line I’ve heard repeated from a number of people is that they like Facebook because it’s allowed them to connect and communicate with people more easily, almost as if there was no way to communicate online before. It seems like people can’t remember a time before Facebook.

Before there was Facebook, there were forums. Forums had many wonderful features. They were often run by an individual or a group of friends instead of a big corporation. They were often customized to and based around certain interests, whether that be gaming, books, or general socializing, including customizing how the forum looked through themes. Sections of forums, or entire forums, could be set to private so only registered users with proper authorization were able to view them, with forum staff overseeing the registration process to make sure only those that should have access to the forums did. And, of course, because this was all done privately, there weren’t any big companies collecting and selling data.

Many forums didn’t even have ads, as all you need to host a forum is some simple server space which usually isn’t very expensive, and some free open source forum software.

Forums still exist of course, but they’re not as popular since the advent of large social media sites. Perhaps it’s time people thought about giving forums a try once again.