Word of Mouth Forums

Online forums are nothing new. Social networking sites are nothing new. And Web sites that combine both purposes are nothing new.

There are locally-focused online gathering places, such as hawaiithreads.com and food and restaurant-focused blogs such as onokinegrindz.com, tastyisland.wordpress.com and the Hawaii Restaurant Association-connected myalohavibe.com.

Many popular Web sites get that way because links get e-mailed around by one person to one or more friends, but very few of those sites -- if any -- get the back up of promotion through a television partnership.

The exception in Hawaii is womf.com, which stands for Word of Mouth Forums, for which KGMB-TV has been running commercials.

WOMF has sites focused on Australia, Namibia, New Zealand and South Africa and now, Hawaii, at hawaii.womf.com.