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Is Google taking over Usenet?
No. No one can "take over" UseNet. It is a co-operative service offered by thousands of independent servers throughout the world. I believe it enjoys "common carrier" status in the USA, meaning server operators are not legally responsible for content, just as phone companies are not responsible for what people say on the telephone. This makes it one of the most open vanguards of free speech.
Google archives usenet posts, makes them searchable, and provides a web-based interface. For very obvious legal reasons (and just plain good taste), they don't archive binaries, including pictures. You still need your news-reader software to access those.
I don't believe Google can be considered a common carrier, and its archive is susceptible to censorship. The act of adding targeted adverts can be considered an editorial function -- to offer a targeted ad obviously means you have awarenenss what is there. As I understand it, any editing of content, no matter how benign, opens the operator to all sorts of constraints a common carrier need not worry about.
-- Rich
Usenet was rather like the Old West of the web. It remained relatively unknown and was not frequented by the uninitiated.
Deja provided a useful service archiving all that information. I suppose this was predictable when G bought them out. Too bad...
Should be interesting to see how copyright issues are resolved. Yes, there are many mirrors of usenet groups out there, but this move on G's part looks like a wholesale takeover. Milliions of pages of free content, and more generated every day. I wonder if I will get a share of G's ad revenues for each usenet post I make that generates clicks.
I am uncomfortable with corporate America taking over a shared community for their own advantage, and that is what it looks like G is doing here.
WBF
Does Google want to take over Usenet? Does Yahoo want to take over Usenet with their Yahoo communities? Does MSN want to take over Usenet with the MSN communities? Does Webmaster World want to take over (a branch of) Usenet?
I'm "on the Usenet" since 1989, but I gave up several years ago. Spam-ridden, flamewar contaminated, virus/trojan filled newsgroups suffering under their own weight. Information content floating towards Zero in many, many newsgroups.
I found my sanctuary in Yahoo groups - and in specialty forums like WW. Admittedly, not as broad as Usenet, but for many topics there is one or more Yahoo group. Sure, some are Spam-ridden too, but all in all it's better than Usenet.
So I congratulate Google on their move, hoping they can pull it off and reach critical mass! Usenet was fun from '89 to ~ '96/97, but it has crossed its zenith and is rapidly steering towards oblivion. Bye, and thanks for the fish.
P.S. Well, maybe MSN does want to do it :-)
I am uncomfortable with corporate America taking over a shared community for their own advantage, and that is what it looks like G is doing here.
Just out of curiousity, why is it ok for Webmasterworld to try to make a bit of money from your posts here, but not Google from your usenet posts?
-- Rich
usenet has a long (and sometimes checkered) history. alt. groups arose, at least in part, because of the usenet participants that wanted to maintain independence from bureaucracies. usenet is one of the more untamed areas of hyperspace.
BB's like Webamster World began as private ventures and were built by the hard work and captial of their owners. That is distinctly different than the usenet community, at least in my mind.
If you frequent usenet, it is not uncommon to hear complaints about the mirrors of usenet groups that exists on the www. The usenet community is an independent lot.
The romantic in me just hates to see this last frontier, with 25 years of history, taken over by G. "Taken over," you might ask. Where G used to simply archive this material, it looks now like a move to full commercialization of it, and that in my mind is taking it over.
WBF
We disagree (and that's ok :) ). Did the commercial Red Hat product take over Linux? Just because someone commercializes a freely available resource doesn't mean the raw resource ceases to be available and valuable on its own merit.
IMO, Google has enhanced the UseNet greatly, not detracted from it. An indexed, searchable database of a billion+ posts is pretty darn cool, and immensely useful -- even if it has inobtrusive ads. (Of course, the government could take it over, and we could pay for it with tax dollars.)
-- Rich
And you thought the MSN beta search launch was bad.
Yahoo Groups and MSN Communities have no affiliation with usenet, so I fail to grasp your point
What I was referring too was the ADDITIONAL groups/communities Google seems to offer. Either I have misunderstood it completely, or it is the same approach Yahoo Groups and MSN Communities have taken.
As for web-based forums like WW: if WW would not have been founded in the first place, a lot of its members would have participiated in Usenet forums (very much like I did before I found out about WW). Since WW seems to be the better controlled, more focused place, I almost solely rely on WW (and a few other web based forums), and NOT anymore on Usenet.
It appears to me that G is simply providing an interface from WWW to usenet, and that the ADDITIONAL groups will simply be additional usenet groups.
WBF
Look as a random example at [groups-beta.google.com...]
What you see is Usenet-Hierarchies above, but below the seperating line is what seems to me to be Google's own NON-USENET groups/communities - very much like MSN or Yahoo.
So, if Google is inviting people to create new newsgroups, it does not impinge on Usenet proper, which has stringent rules. Private hierarchies can be created at will, but their propagation tends to be deliberately or causally limited.
The new groups that can be created through Google Groups 2... do they actually become Usenet/Newsnet groups accessible through a non-web usenet interface?
Or are they just "Google Groups" in the same manner as Yahoo Groups?
Tried nntp://news.google.com and nntp://groups-beta.google.com but got no answer (not even a 'declined') from both.
So I guess it's up to GoogleGuy to lift the veil on our questions?!
P.S. Nice touch - a group automatically creates an atom-feed...
Haven't used Google Groups much (except for searching obscure historic usenet discussions), and can't really see why I should start now.
IMO, Google has enhanced the UseNet greatly, not detracted from it. An indexed, searchable database of a billion+ posts is pretty darn cool, and immensely useful -- even if it has inobtrusive ads. (Of course, the government could take it over, and we could pay for it with tax dollars.)
No.
They *bought* the technology and the original archive from deja.com, no innovation here.
It was fine when it was deja, acceptable in its second incarnation, and sucks the big one in the present form.
So I filled out the feedback form and got an auto reply. I sincerely hope Google really read all the mail they get, and that they really use feedback provided by users. Otherwise the Usenet community would IMHO no longer have a usable archive.
I know they bought deja.com. I'm willing to bet, though, that any search algorithms deja had have been fully revamped. Google also made a concerted effort, not fully realized, to complete the missing posts from the usenet that, for whatever reason, deja had missed.
I'm not saying Google's current implementation is perfect. RonPK's point about proportional fonts is one example of where they fall short. My point is that it is immensely useful, not that I would want it to replace usenet.
Do you remember the last-gasp days of deja.com? The company was obviously trying to find ways to make money, and the result was an obnoxiously commercial implementation with left and right side-bars, and the "meat" narrowly crammed between. I'm not criticising them, but it is worth pointing out that they had problems too.
-- Rich
