Forums2.0

What would happen if you mashed up twitter with forums?
Forums are about the most ubiquitous form of social network we have. Any 1.0 and above website has one.

What's wrong with forums?
1. The subjects at the top of the page when you arrive may not interest you.
2. Finding stuff that does interest you may involve trawling back through previous pages, or relying on a search.
3. There's not a lot of searching going on on forums.
4. The subjects that might interest you might not be posted on by people you know or care about.

All of which makes you less likely to contribute, and reinforces the powerlaw of a handful of superusers dominating the conversation.

Compare that to twitter. When I arrive at twitter I ONLY see recent posts, most of which are in some way relevant to me because they are posted by people I have selected thanks to our relatively well-fitting metadata.

So what if I could have a forum which recognises who I am, knows my metadata (through profile tagging if necessary) and knows the users I am most interested in joining in conversation with.

And what if it then delivers the relevant posts at the top of 'my' forum.

I think I might like that. I think a lot of forum users might like that.

What do you think - and where can I find this happening already?