Retailers and merchants involved in electronic commerce continually strive to make it easier for customers to research products and receive information that may assist in purchasing decisions. One way to improve a customer's experience includes providing discussion forums (or discussion boards) that allow customers to exchange information with other people via dialogue in a discussion. The ever-enlarging product catalog makes discussion forums helpful when a customer tries to distinguish between products, seek out impartial advice, learn more about a product or category, share the customer's experience with or impressions of a product, or obtain other information. A merchant with a large catalog of products may offer a large number of different discussion forums on a variety of topics, which may range from very specific topics to general ones. Some forums may be more active and have a greater frequency of responses than other forums. While these forums are useful for customers to share information regarding an item or to make purchasing decisions within a category of items, activity in such forums is not typically analyzed by a merchant or retailer to determine items or categories that are of interest to customers.