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Forums, like email, is one of those "killer applications" that made the Internet so powerful. Social media came along and it appeared that forums would be pushed aside as "old technology" like IRC chat etc... Using the more modern forums though, such as this one, is a different experience than the forums 1.0 of the past. Videos can now easily be embedded with just a click (just like Facebook and Twitter) and there are even more options for editing text than possible on FB currently. Images are very easily shareable now on forums compared to previous years. I will posit that social media made forum 1.0 technology to innovate and keep up. Going forward people may soon remember how refreshing categories and topics can be versus the firehose of information people typically get on a FB newsfeed which their algorithims select what you see. (think big brother 2.0) There is also the possibility of allowing people to talk about things they don't want thier real names attached to. The USA was started in part due to "anonymous free speech". At times it is necessary. Granted, Twitter offers this already but forums had this 25 years ago and still do. Forums like this one are also innovating with ideas on how to learn more from social media's success with such things as status updates etc... Will we someday see the resurgence of massive forums where information is exchanged without a nauseating newsfeed? Enjoy!

I am still going to say Invision Power Boards 4.x suite but it is lacking a progressive web app. This site runs on IPB for instance. I am wondering if anyone knows of a better platform that is monetizable using adsense? I am surprised Google hasn't created a full suite for forum admins to complement it's adsense product together with a built in pwa. Your Thoughts?

I would take the lessons learned from social media about smooth and fast functionality. Users don't want to have to title a photo.... maybe they just want to post it? Comments need not be in some big box...with a huge profile photo next to each comment..... A link on their username is sufficient to lead to their profile page. I would also make them "real-time" / "threaded" and "super-fast" (basically showing when someone else is typing.... thereby keeping people online to wait for someone replying. Some would reply that forum comments are "for the ages" and are somehow written "in stone" compared to social media..... (Baloney!!) I can go back to posts on FB from 10 years ago and read comments the same way we do on forums. OH... and these new comment systems can be made SEO friendly. (Check out rt.com commenting system for example) Video and audio chat are just add ons... for those companies trying to become infrastructure contenders. One key component why forums aren't advancing against social media are the investment in apps by forums in general. So basically... once all the above is done... AND THEN also offered in an APP... then I think forums would start to dominate again over time. I should also add a comment about video as well. Modern users of social media want to upload video directly to their "site" and have it play... They don't want to worry about format. They don't want it to be just a link for others to potentially play. Facebook is now a VIDEO first company. Guess where the masses of people are spending their time as well? Seen YouTube.com lately? Forums could/should try to take on this area as well. We have the advantage of better organization. Google would not be able to relegate forum traffic to "internet drivel" as they like to currently. They would be forced to link to where the video is hosted. And in this case it would be on our forums and not on their YouTube.com