2Channel and 2Chan (1999)

[Parent entry for 2Channel and 2Chan memes]

About 2Channel (2ch.net)

On May 30th, 1999, University of Central Arkansas student Hiroyuki Nishimura opened 2Channel or 2ch.net: the first completely anonymous message board of its kind.

Excerpt from Wikipedia on 2Channel:

A posting in a thread will either “age” (bump, from Japanese “ageru”, to raise) or “sage” (not bump, from Japanese “sageru”, to lower) its position in the thread list; “sage-ed” posts have no effect on its position. Threads may be “sage-ed” if the thread is disliked, or to keep it from cluttering the main thread list, or to prevent idle browsers from flooding in and trolling the thread at the top of the list.

Because of the absolute freedom and anonymity the board offered, it quickly grew to become the largest and most influential message board in Japan. According to Alexa.org, 2Channel today is the 153rd most popular site online. For comparison, Google is #1, Digg is #115 while 4chan is #617.

About Futaba (2chan.net)

On August 30th, 2001, 2Channel was in danger of shutting down, so Futaba Channel was launched at the site 2chan.net. Futaba differed from 2Channel by allowing images to accompany the text. 4Chan was based upon Futaba 2Chan which was based upon the original 2Channel.

The concept of an entirely Anonymous and mostly self-governing web community was born from Japan’s 2Channel, carried over to 2Chan, and subsequently carried to the US via 4Chan.

2Channel with Google Translator
2Chan (Futaba) with Google Translator