--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Posted on Sun, Mar. 13, 2005



There's still a lot of use for Usenet




The Internet's defining characteristic is its interactivity, and one
of the oldest tools for this is Usenet. America Online recently
decided to drop Usenet from its services.

This, along with generating howls of protest from some, has led others
to question the viability of Usenet as a useful tool for individuals
and businesses.

Created in 1979 by two Duke University graduate students, Usenet is
still the world's largest gabfest, with nearly 100,000 separate
discussion groups covering the humanities, the sciences, business,
politics, computers, and other areas.

Though they are formally called "newsgroups," most Usenet groups
deliver far more opinion, debate, rumor, advice, camaraderie, humor,
flirting and spam than hard news.

Despite the fact that Americans, and English speakers in general, are
disproportionately represented, participation is worldwide, which has
led some over the years to suggest that Usenet can help people better
understand one another and bridge differences between countries and
cultures.

But discussion on Usenet is text-based, and other online communication
and community-building tec hnologies have come along with more
graphical pizzazz. Blogs, short for Web logs, and Web-based discussion
groups get more attention today.

Many people who have gone online since the Web became popular in the
mid-1990s do not even know about Usenet.

Usenet can still be a valuable resource, for discussing what is on
your mind and gauging what is on the mind of others.

"AOL doesn't get it," Nathan Boyle said in a discussion at CNET, a
technology news and information site, following a CNET article about
AOL's decision to drop Usenet.

Boyle, a financial services consultant in Bowling Green, Ohio, has his
own blog in addition to participating in Web-based discussion groups.

But he still appreciates Usenet for its research and archival
benefits.

"It's an amazing resource," he said in a telephone interview.

Blogs are typically sounding boards for individuals, controlled by
them.

Web-based discussion groups are controlled by the Web site or company
that runs them. With Usenet, "anybody can speak his mind," Boyle said.

Boyle's sentiments were echoed in the same discussion by Jeff
Barringer.

"Usenet is the ultimate leveler when it comes to free speech," said
Barringer, who runs OnlineHobbyist.com Inc., a Web-based community for
pet lovers.

In a phone interview, Barringer said he used Usenet for marketing and
research. By participating in Usenet discussions, he attracts people
to his own service's online discussions.

He also finds background material useful for his business through his
Usenet involvement.

The premier tool to mine Usenet for informational nuggets is Google
Groups, a free service of Google, the popular Web search engine. Along
with letting you participate in Usenet discussions, Google Groups also
provides advanced search tools to help you find out what people are
saying about your organization, your competition, or yourself.

A lesser-known but interesting Usenet search tool is a free offering
from Microsoft called Netscan.

It excels at providing aggregate information on the level of
discussion activity about specific subjects.

Despite AOL's move, many Internet service providers continue to offer
access to Usenet through Usenet programs, or "newsreaders," such as
Forte Agent, or through e-mail programs that offer newsreading
capabilities, such as Microsoft Outlook Express.

Participating in Usenet discussions this way is more convenient than
through Google Groups, which is primarily a search and archiving
service.

If your ISP does not offer Usenet access, two popular options for
obtaining it are Giganews and News.Individual.NET.

On the Web

www.cnet.com

www.nwlbnet.blogspot.com

www.pethobbyist.com

http://groups.google.com

http://netscan.research.

microsoft.com

www.forteinc.com/agent

www.giganews.com

http://news.individual.net


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contact columnist Reid Goldsborough at
. Read his recent work at http://go.
philly.com/reidgoldsborough.





--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

© 2005 Philadelphia Inquirer and wire service sources. All Rights
Reserved.
http://www.philly.com

Thomas J. Watson - WoodDorker

tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet (real email)
http://home.comcast.net/~tjwatson1 (webpage)

On Sun, 13 Mar 2005 09:21:52 -0500, the inscrutable Tom Watson
spake:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Posted on Sun, Mar. 13, 2005

There's still a lot of use for Usenet

--megasnip--

Amen. News about the death of Usenet has been overestimated and
extremely premature.


"AOL doesn't get it," Nathan Boyle said in a discussion at CNET, a

That's an understatement.

--
Life's a Frisbee: When you die, your soul goes up on the roof.
----
http://diversify.com Comprehensive Website Development

Larry Jaques wrote:
On Sun, 13 Mar 2005 09:21:52 -0500, the inscrutable Tom Watson
spake:


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Posted on Sun, Mar. 13, 2005

There's still a lot of use for Usenet

--megasnip--

Amen. News about the death of Usenet has been overestimated and
extremely premature.


"AOL doesn't get it," Nathan Boyle said in a discussion at CNET, a

That's an understatement.


I remember when the death of Usenet was predicted as imminent because
AOL had decided to to provide UseNet access to its members.

Me too!

--

FF

The real story is less the death of Usenet than the death of the NNTP
protocol.

NNTP was designed to make it easier to read mailing lists and to reduce
the amount of bandwidth used. The problem is that it does not scale, no
newsgroup works with more than about 150 active members and the reader
/ writer ratio tends to be at least 1 poster for 10 lurkers. So each
group is a community of about 1500 people.

The problem with usenet is that every post is sent to every NNTP server
whether it is going to be read or not. It worked when the average
number of readers per site was 5. Today the average number of times a
post is read is about 0.1 on the busy servers and on the small ones
0.01 times or less.

Weblogs and RSS feeds are dramatically more efficient than NNTP.

Its not only AOL that has dumped NNTP, my provider Comcast now wants a
separate payment for news. So I now read through google groups.

Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:
The real story is less the death of Usenet than the death of the NNTP
protocol.

NNTP was designed to make it easier to read mailing lists and to
reduce the amount of bandwidth used. The problem is that it does not
scale, no newsgroup works with more than about 150 active members
and the reader / writer ratio tends to be at least 1 poster for 10
lurkers. So each group is a community of about 1500 people.

The problem with usenet is that every post is sent to every NNTP
server whether it is going to be read or not. It worked when the
average number of readers per site was 5. Today the average number
of times a post is read is about 0.1 on the busy servers and on the
small ones
0.01 times or less.

Weblogs and RSS feeds are dramatically more efficient than NNTP.

Its not only AOL that has dumped NNTP, my provider Comcast now wants
a separate payment for news. So I now read through google groups.

My interface with Comcast has not (yet) asked for more money for
newsgroups, Comcast uses Giganews, lately the connection has been very very
slow and I've been wondering what they have been doing - maybe just asking
for more money to speed up the service they have slowed down?

Are you able to read several newsgroups via Google without having to sign
in to each one?

Josie

On Sun, 13 Mar 2005 09:21:52 -0500, Tom Watson wrote:


... .snip
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Posted on Sun, Mar. 13, 2005



There's still a lot of use for Usenet


ayup


The Internet's defining characteristic is its interactivity, and one
of the oldest tools for this is Usenet. America Online recently
decided to drop Usenet from its services.

This, along with generating howls of protest from some, has led others
to question the viability of Usenet as a useful tool for individuals
and businesses.


So if AOL drops it, it's no longer viable?

.... snip
Despite the fact that Americans, and English speakers in general, are
disproportionately represented, participation is worldwide, which has
led some over the years to suggest that Usenet can help people better
understand one another and bridge differences between countries and
cultures.


"disproportionately represented"? By whose standards? Something about
that paragraph just really rubbed a raw nerve.



.... snip

Usenet can still be a valuable resource, for discussing what is on
your mind and gauging what is on the mind of others.

"AOL doesn't get it," Nathan Boyle said in a discussion at CNET, a
technology news and information site, following a CNET article about
AOL's decision to drop Usenet.


Using AOL as the signpost of the future is problematic.

.... snip


Thanks for the post Tom.




+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
The absence of accidents does not mean the presence of safety
Army General Richard Cody
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

firstjois wrote:
...

Are you able to read several newsgroups via Google without having to
sign
in to each one?


Yes.

Google has a 'subscribe to this newsgroup' function but I have no
idea what it does since you can read and post to nesgroups through
Google without using it.

--

FF

firstjois wrote:

Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:
The real story is less the death of Usenet than the death of the NNTP
protocol.

NNTP was designed to make it easier to read mailing lists and to
reduce the amount of bandwidth used. The problem is that it does not
scale, no newsgroup works with more than about 150 active members
and the reader / writer ratio tends to be at least 1 poster for 10
lurkers. So each group is a community of about 1500 people.

The problem with usenet is that every post is sent to every NNTP
server whether it is going to be read or not. It worked when the
average number of readers per site was 5. Today the average number
of times a post is read is about 0.1 on the busy servers and on the
small ones
0.01 times or less.

Weblogs and RSS feeds are dramatically more efficient than NNTP.

Its not only AOL that has dumped NNTP, my provider Comcast now wants
a separate payment for news. So I now read through google groups.

My interface with Comcast has not (yet) asked for more money for
newsgroups, Comcast uses Giganews, lately the connection has been very
very slow and I've been wondering what they have been doing - maybe just
asking for more money to speed up the service they have slowed down?

Are you able to read several newsgroups via Google without having to sign
in to each one?

You only have to sign in to post.

Josie

--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

"Mark & Juanita" wrote in message
Despite the fact that Americans, and English speakers in general, are
disproportionately represented, participation is worldwide, which has
led some over the years to suggest that Usenet can help people better
understand one another and bridge differences between countries and
cultures.


"disproportionately represented"? By whose standards? Something about
that paragraph just really rubbed a raw nerve.

We should stop posting until people of other languages catch up to us. Just
another reason we need a moderator here, to assure that all languages are
properly represented. There are approximately 172 English speaking people
on line, but only 163 million non-English speakers. Latvians and Eskimos are
severely under represented here. I think we should either post in those
languages, or stop until they catch up.

An alternative solution it so post in certain languages on certain day.
Sunday we'll do Aleutian, Slovakian, Korean. Mondays we will post in
Swahili, French, . . . . .

Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:

: Weblogs and RSS feeds are dramatically more efficient than NNTP.

From a user's standpoint, NNTP read with a text-based reader (e.g., tin)
is WAY faster than any graphics/HTML system. So from that standpoint it's
better.

-- Andy Barss

From a user's standpoint, NNTP read with a text-based reader (e.g.,
tin)
is WAY faster than any graphics/HTML system. So from that standpoint
it's
better.

Like Dilbert, I like to think of myself as a technology 'have'.

Unless I was in an area that didn't have broadband I can't think of any
reason why the speed would be an issue.

Of course I might be considered a little biased in this respect given
my role in the Web.