Slide 1:
Hello again and welcome to COM 333, and today, lecture number 7.  Today we’re going to be talking about Usenet and Electronic Bulletin Boards.

Slide 2:
Well, Usenet is a venerable institution on the Internet.  It began way back in the 1960’s and grew out of UUNET - that is, the Unix Users Network.  A couple of fellows at Duke University, Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis, put together this UUNet and it allowed users, who are using Unix systems, to post messages into groups, and the idea was to create a way in which persons could create a kind of electronic bulletin board, that is, put up a message, and someone put up another message, and another, and perhaps even respond to one another.  The advantage of that, of course, is that the messages would be up there for anybody to see and could be shared over time using this electronic technology.  Well, in 1986, things started getting really organized - the individual groups posting messages are called newsgroups and Usenet is the amalgamation of all of those newsgroups.  Well, the newsgroups were categorized into computer, miscellaneous, news, recreation, science, society, and talk, or just chatting kinds of topics.  In 1987, alt was added for alternative discussions, and these covered areas like drugs, and sex, and rock-n-roll, and so it continued to expand from there.

Slide 3:
One can view Usenet in a number of ways.  Traditionally one used programs, and gosh, there were a number of them: NR and TIN (using telnet technology).  More recently, Netscape and Internet Explorer provided interfaces to view newsgroups and to read and post messages.  Now, Deja News has created a website - it’s linked to our syllabus.  Deja News allows for searching on key words across groups, so if one were looking for something maybe related to, oh, let’s say a health issue, you could post the disease (or whatever) of your choice and then search multiple newsgroups to see if they might have a message that uses that term.  Well, Usenet itself is waning somewhat now, while it’s still very, very popular and there are tons of thousands of groups out there.  It’s beginning to fade as an entity such as it originally was established.

Slide 4:
Now, Usenet is being replaced more and more by web boards.  Newsgroups are migrating to the World Wide Web since most of those accessing the newsgroups or Usenet are in fact using web browsers.  And so web-based message boards are taking their place.  One great example, at least for us, is the O’Reilly WebBoard.  That’s the discussion board that we’ve been using for our class assignments all semester.  And there are boards up at Yahoo!, a great example.  You might go to Yahoo!, I believe that you have to login there, but there is no charge and you can take a look at message boards that are posted up at the Yahoo! site.  Another large site is People Talk, listing discussion groups and chat areas in many, many, many fields.  There are hundreds and hundreds of other message boards out there on the Internet and these are used, not only by persons for recreation, but also used for comments and discussion, for support of products, a good way to provide a support service - let’s say for a computer company, would be to have message boards where users can post problems (“I have a problem with this particular component”) and then others can respond to it.  And, of course, automobiles and so many other products have established their own web boards to facilitate discussion and to facilitate on-line service.  Some have called Usenet and those message boards as the international equivalent of the old CB radio.

Slide 5:
And there are certain inherent advantages and when we talk about this particular technology.  It is asynchronous - that means that you don’t have to be there at the same time, as you would for a chat, like the AOL Instant Messenger.  It can be done anytime.  It can be done anywhere.  And it also has a permanent record, and that’s unique, maybe not unique, but unusual in the electronic realm - that records are kept of this and one can keep archives, and also the potential to search this after the fact, and so those characteristics are inherent advantages.  It also provides for interaction among people.  It’s not just as in a web site, where one might present information, but not encourage that kind of on-going interaction, such as tends to take place on these web boards or Usenet groups.  It also provides for extended virtual conversations, and so the kind of conversation that we might have face-to-face or we might have in a chat room, can be extended over days, and weeks, and months, and it’s certainly been known that some of these conversations even are carried on for years as discussions continue on the very same topic.  So in many respects, this particular aspect of the Internet is unique among the mass media.  When we take at look radio, or television, or the print medium, we don’t see this kind of on-going interaction between individuals and among individuals.  The mass media tends to be one-way - telephone and other technologies tend to be one-to-one - this one, rather, tends to be a collective discussion that continues, and also for which there is a permanent record.

Slide 6:
Well, after our brief discussion today, I’d ask you to spend some time, maybe some of the time that we’re saving from this lecture, spend a little extra time searching Deja News.  Note that you may post from Deja News and you can post messages on the news group, you can receive messages from the News Group.  You should examine the groups at Liszt.  You recall, we may have mentioned Liszt previously regarding the listservs, and in this case, Liszt also has the listing of some 18,000 Usenet groups, and it’s much easier to follow the threads, but there’s no posting capability at the link that I put on the syllabus.  Rather it’s a good place to follow discussions, and you can of course send e-mail to the person who posted the individual message, but not immediately post to the entire group.  And then, of course, visit our very own WebBoard and participate in it as the topic of the day or the topic of the week.  Read our assignment for this week, for the seventh week of the semester.  And I look forward to seeing you virtually next week.