Paul Jacobson

TechCrunch has opened a forum for discussions about Web 2.0, new and existing product announcements and other interesting discussions. CrunchForums is run using software by Jive Software which will be familiar to Mac users who make use of Apple's forums from time to time.

There really seem to be a number of sites incorporating discussion forums (fora?) lately and my original thought was that a forum is so 1990s but when I considered the iBurst blog a little while ago I realised how valuable a good forum can be when used properly. It is really a question of what kind of collaboration and feedback you want to facilitate and which tool is best for that. A forum is great for discussions about a variety of topics, often topics that users themselves want to debate whereas a blog is great for discussions on specific topics, usually set by the posts.

I see great value in the CrunchForums, if anything, because they could prove to be a source of information about new services and products as well as about existing services and products we all love to use or perhaps love to hate.

Tags: crunchforums, forums, blogs, collaboration, feedback, discussion