>>4
The western world has few usual forms of online communication. The brand-obssessed North American culture likes to distinguish itself at every available opportunity instead of building on others' existing work.

Everyone has their own forum, their own commenting system, their own skins and interface quirks, their own unwritten rules, their own memes, and so on. Unlike 2ch's function as a huge melting pot that blends every culture into every other culture and produces a kind of meta-culture where everything more or less fits in, western online communities are less expansive and less forgiving of elements that don't conform to expectations.

If 2ch culture can be described as a de facto standard, then western online culture may be described as many warring standards (PHP/Perl, DVD+R/DVD-R, PDAs/handsets, you know the sort).