There are tens of thousands of forums, maybe more. We run a web forum titled the Print4Pay Hotel, site is dedicated to those of us in the imaging industry. It is a secure forum and you need to register in order to view and post messages. There are also many non secure forums, these are forums that allows end users to read the messages (threads, posts, replies) but in order to post a message you may need to become a member. In these forums members/users will ask questions or carry on conversations through the forum, the web forum is an easy way to find out what a product can do or can't do. Many users feel more comfortable talking about a product or service in a third party secure forum.
Let's look at this hypothetical situation, some company bought a XYZ color production system and to date they are not happy with with the system due to print quality not being what they expected. They've had numerous service calls and still the same result. As an end user what else can you do? A lot of end users are turning to web forums where they can find additional information, in the color print production this would be Print Planet (there are others, however I follow this one). Once on the forums the end user can read what others have posted in reference to the same unit, and they may be able to get a workaround or help from another user that has the same system.
