Why bulletine board is not popular in US?

This question has been in my mind since I came here 2 years ago. Neither facebook or any other social networking sites will be like the biggest electronic bulletine board, PTT, in Taiwan (now it may be the biggest in Chinese-based area) that "dominates" my life for more than a decade... it becomes part of my daily life and part of over 150, 000 users' daily life. Compared to it, facebook and other social networking sites really can't arouse my interest and influence my life so much. Even though I'm getting older and some boards are not interesting to me anymore, I can always find other boards on it. More and more people, especially the generation after mid-70s, are fully engaged in it.

Why craigslist is so popular in US is not surprising to me at all because it has similar characteristic of the bulletine board, thousands and thousands users generated information and all kinds of needs that are closest to our daily life. People share interest and also shape the identity in the "virtue" world (actually it's not virtue at all, it's real). That is the best place for me to observe the new trend of the soceity in various area and the new pattern of online interaction. All the new niches mentioned in "what would google do?" have already been shown in PTT, for example, the food product introduced on it by someone will become a hit and the firm that sells the product doesn't need any advertising at all. Now, it is news organizations that chase what's popular on the PTT and report all the young generation already know.

Unlike bloggers that could become a star after being well-known and changed his/her original reason to blogging because of the benefits from advertising. People in PTT are not easily been influenced by advertising, but greatly by other people's suggestions and personal experiences. It makes me think about are you going back to the interpersonal communication model, or online interpersonal communication model rather than mass media's grand theory (the effect of the new online interpseronal communication is big and broad though).