Online forums and Social media networks

Online forums

An online forum is a discussion area on website. The forum members can post discussion topics and read and respond to the topics posted by other members. A forum can be dedicated to any topic. The forum members gradually develop a sense of an online community and a social group. It is also known as a discussion board, internet forum or a message group. Online forums generally appear along with a website. There are also websites entirely devoted for online forum. A single conversation or discussion based on a topic is called a thread. There can be a number of such threads in an online forum.

Social media networks

A social media is a communicative tool that uses mobile and internet technologies, for creating highly interactive communities to share, discuss and modify user generated content. User generated content can be information, ideas, pictures, videos, etc. Social media is a wide term that includes collaborative websites such as Wikipedia, social networking sites like Facebook, content communities like YouTube, etc. nowadays social networking has become one of the most powerful sources for news updates through various platforms. Social media sites provide a space for free speech and expression. Recently many political and social movements have arisen from the campaigns held through social media. They introduce enormous and persistent changes to communication between businesses, organisations, communities, and individuals. The most common social networking sites are, Facebook, YouTube, twitter, blogger, word press, linked in, tumbler, etc.