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Three decades later, most households have a TV in every room and with more than 200 channels to choose from the act of watching TV has become a solitary occupation rather than a social event.

This doesn't mean we've stop sharing laughs with each other, however. Thanks to the web and in particular 'social media' (YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and the like) we're discovering, consuming, enjoying and sharing comedy more than ever before.

In 1977, you would have heard Mr Smith the grocer ask Mrs Jones whether she'd watched The Two Ronnies on TV the night before (chances are she had). In 2011, such exchanges are more like to run along the lines of 'Have you seen Will Ferrell's 'Landlord' sketch on YouTube? It's hilarious. I'll send you the link.'

So where can you find comedy - and in particular new comedy - on the web?

The simple answer is everywhere.

But let's start with the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ. Will Saunders is responsible for the content of ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Comedy, visits to which have increased by nearly 350% over the past 18 months.

Will says that by 'clipping it, blogging it and adding to it' the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ is helping audiences to discover new comedy online. "Social media (Twitter, Facebook, Buzzfeed, Tumblr) plays an important role in enabling the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ to talk to audiences about what we make. Social media is about listening as much as telling so we use it to join conversations, source comments and ideas and let people share with us what they find funny (and what they don't)."

I logged onto the microblogging site Twitter just as the first episode of the new ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ1 comedy Mrs Brown's Boys was about to air, and watched as ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Comedy (@bbccomedy) published a stream of tweets that asked the audience to share what they thought about the new show as they were watching it. The 'feedback loop' that Twitter provides is clearly invaluable to the producers of comedy at the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ and elsewhere as they develop content that they hope will prove popular among the people they wish to entertain.

There are many places on the web where you can find out what comedy is hot or not. Plenty of sites attempt to provide a definitive guide to all that's funny on the web. There is so much comedy online now, particularly on video sites such as YouTube and Vimeo, that sites providing a critical filter are becoming increasingly valuable.

But you don't need the support of critics or corporations to put your own comedy online. Some of the biggest hits of YouTube have managed to propel themselves to internet stardom simply by making us web users laugh hard and often.

More established comedians seem to favour Twitter, with the biggest of the UK comedians attracting an incredible number of 'followers' (Sarah Millican: 360,000, Jimmy Carr: 1,900,000, Stephen Fry:Ìý3,900,000 and counting) through a channel that enables them to have completely uninhibited dialogue with fans and critics alike.

I can't finish this article without mentioning the two sites that tower over all the others in terms of both their popularity and influence. The Onion is cited by many as their favourite satirical site, while Chortle is the home of news and video clips featuring anybody who is anybody on the UK comedy scene.

Where the controllers of TV stations once governed what we watched and when we watched it, the web has made us all producers, editors and controllers of the comedy we watch, share and create. Comedy is no longer served up in strict half-hour slices at set times of the day. It is copied, chopped about and made freely and universally available for anyone to view however and whenever they want thanks to the web, and this digital revolution in how comedy is being shared is helping new comedy to break through into the mainstream.

Julie Howell established the world's first online community for people with MS. Since then, Julie has written the first British Standard on web accessibility and has led national campaigns to make the web more accessible to disabled people.