An Online forum is a discussion area on a website. Website members can post discussions and read and respond to posts by other forum members. An Internet forum can be focused on nearly any subject and a sense of an online community, or virtual community, tends to develop among forum members.An Online forum is also called a message board, discussion group, bulletin board or web forum. However, it differs from a blog, the name for a web log, as a blog is usually written by one user and usually only allows for the responses of others to the blog material. Any forum usually allows all members to make posts and start new topics.An Online forum is also different from a chat room. Members in a chat room usually all chat or communicate at the same time, while members in an Internet forum post messages to be read by others whenever they happen to log on. Internet forums also tend to be more topic-focused than chat rooms.

Online forum is not exactly a new trend inside the Network. The current online forum that we have today is the next generation of Bulletin Board System that exist in the early days of the Internet.