What was your first ever online chat / forum experience?

[PoohBears#1fan]

Mine was Yahoo chat rooms back around 1998, we then progressed to ICQ for direct (slow as it was dial up!) messaging.

How things have changed over the years, it's all so much faster and slicker and probably so much more of a nightmare for people running it with vast numbers of users.

My first ever forum was a wedding planning site back in the 90's, then there was a spin off site that grew huge, then incorporated a baby page as all us 'brides' turned to mums then the owner got fed up & pulled the plug one day!

I'm still in touch with quite a few people from back then.

What was yours?

[Miss_Tangled]

I remember AOL chat, funnily I was reading something a couple of weeks ago that said 3% of Americans still use AOL dial up.

[Minnie18]

Not sure if Facebook is included or not if not then Mines would be the Dibb.

[PoohBears#1fan]

Originally Posted by Miss_Tangled

I remember AOL chat, funnily I was reading something a couple of weeks ago that said 3% of Americans still use AOL dial up.

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I never used AOL but remember it, it used to pop up in films / TV shows also! Can't believe people still use dial up, I can still hear the sound of it, clearly stuck in my head forever!

Originally Posted by Minnie18

Not sure if Facebook is included or not if not then Mines would be the Dibb.

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You can include whatever you like I think FB killed a lot of online forum type communities when it started to really grow, a friend of mine hosted one where people also blogged, but she lost practically all of her members to FB.

[leenkerri]

Compuserve back in the day when your username and email address was just a long number and it was £2.95 an hour to be online plus your phone bill. Can also remember when you could actually pick a screen name and then send pictures. Which took hours 😊

[leenkerri]

Originally Posted by Miss_Tangled

I remember AOL chat, funnily I was reading something a couple of weeks ago that said 3% of Americans still use AOL dial up.

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I still have my AOL email from when compuserve merged with AOL, and had to change to an AOL email.

[daisymae]

The Dibb and even then it took me a while to trust it wasn’t a dodgy site just wanting my personal details (I know I know how could I think that). It’s actually the only Forum I’m a member of.

[hexagon]

CBBC used to have forums, Bebo and msn.

[wanye]

knocked around occasionally on a few BBSes back in the day, but i really got into it on the campus2000 network (funded/sponsored by the times IIRC) back in the very early 90's. even met up with some of the kids on there, and one of them i'm still friends with today, i even DJed her 40th birthday party a couple of years ago!)

after that, internet proper from mid 1993.. at uni, and also at home via virgin.net. from there i spent a *lot* of time in IRC chatrooms, and semi-regular meetups around the country for the people on the virginnet #quiz channel

around 1998 we set up a forum/chatroom for rock city, and from there a spinoff site once funding for that was pulled, which thrived (around 1000 active regular members/posters) up until facebook took over and killed most forums dead

(we limped on for a bit, but eventually killed it in 2011ish)

[DisneyDaffodil]

Only used one before the Dibb and nearly put me off for life Netmums 😂. I only really use the Dibb now, I occasionally ask a question on Tripadviser but often get unhelpful, rude replies so I will stick to The Dibb 😀