Microsoft to do for Usenet what it did for Email & The Web?

tjones2 writes "Seems like Microsoft isn't content with sad state of email these days. They now want to "make engaging with communities easier and friendlier". This means extending their reach into Usenet." Fortunately most of Usenet is such a cespool that really they can only make it better. And after cornering the market on email worms, imagine the benefits they can bring to NNTP!

Comments

Most active news group?

[bihoy]

Hmm, what could be the news group with the most activity? Let's search for groups with the word "pictures" in them and I'll bet we find out.

Re:Most active news group?

[rde]

The pictures are overrated, and don't contain nearly as much pr0n as you'd think. Once, over the space of a week, I downloaded all pictures sent to alt.binaries.pictures.eroica .

I got nothing but pictures of bloody Beethoven.

Re:Most active news group?

[AngelfMercy]

I downloaded all pictures sent to alt.binaries.pictures.eroica . I got nothing but pictures of bloody Beethoven. but, where they heroic?

Argh! No! Not More Clippy!

[SUPAMODEL]

... I see you are browsing alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.hornyteens
Would you like:
* tissues
* baby oil
* a life
* or me to fuck off
?

Re:Great - more e-mail addresses for spammers

[Teknogeek]

I seriously doubt that even Microsoft can make the USENET spam problem worse than it already is.

Me2-4Me!

[RyanFenton]

Now, as a time-saving measure, right next to the "post reply" button, there will be a "Me Too" button, and a "Send me the link username@hotmail.com" button. :^)

Ryan Fenton

What can MS do to usenet?

[jetmarc]

Well, as a long time internet participant, I recall quite good what
AOL did to usenet: Aquire a hord of "Me too" follow-up posters.
Actually, a quick google-groups research shows that of the 32,000
postings that contain "me too", a whopping 30,600 also contain the
word "AOL".

So I question - what can Microsoft do to usenet? I suspect, nothing
nice. Probably their efforts result in even more MIME/HTML postings,
with binaries attached in non-binary groups (probably something like
"My Signature.exe"). And certainly a lot of proprietarily encapsulated
text, such as .DOC rich text attached to an otherwise empty posting.

On one hand, usenet is for everyone, including Microsoft users. On
the other hand, I really hope that google-groups will filter them off
so that usenet can stay the valuable source of accurate tech information
that it is today.

Marc

Re:What can MS do to usenet?

[joe_bruin]

me too!

i agree with the above post.

-----Original Message-----
From: jd142
Sent: Sunday August 03, 08:24AM
To: Slashdot (Discussion Groups)
Cc:
Subject: Re:What can MS do to usenet?

correlation != causation. Maybe there are a lot of people saying that AOL users say "me too" a lot. Had this discussion taken place on usenet, we would have incremented the count by two, yet neither one of us are aol users. ;)

Re:meh

[sqlrob]

Check the stats for NANAE (news.admin.net-abuse.email) that get regularly posted. More than half is OE.

Re:Great - more e-mail addresses for spammers

[Anonymous Coward]

true, but I'm sure the boys at Redmond are up to the challenge

The Mozilla News Reader Needs An Update

[perimorph]

Well isn't this just wonderful! It's not enough that usenet is plauged with spam, now we can have pop-up ads there, too!

Someone let me know when the Mozilla team gets them blocked -- God bless them, every one. :)

Microsoft's innovation of the week!

[gstevens]

This week, Microsoft invents the threaded news reader......

Embrace and extend, embrace and extend....

Nothing to worry about

[Anonymous Coward]

search for newsgroups containing "e":
Microsoft VBScript runtime error '800a0006'

Overflow: 'CInt'

/Static/default.asp, line 213


Anyone using CInt for something like that is so utterly clueless that we'll have nothing to worry about.

Bringing Cholera to the Wild West

[tz]

Considering the number of OTDs (outlook transmitted diseases) that would be prevented if Microsoft would just shut off a lot of stuff by default, I can only wonder what new spams and worms will be spread more efficiently.

Re:usenet is ok the way it is

[cesspool]

you keep saying 'cesspool' like its a bad thing ???

Phonetic pronunciation of Beethoven

[Animus Howard]

> I downloaded all pictures sent to alt.binaries.pictures.eroica .
> I got nothing but pictures of bloody Beethoven.

Erocia -> Beethoven

Erotica -> Beat-Off-'n

MS brings entertainment to Usenet...

[Motherfucking Shit]

I've always thought that Microsoft brought quite a bit of entertainment value to Usenet newsgroups. There's nothing like loading up alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.$YOUR_TASTE and seeing a post thusly:

From: Jason Doe <jason@example.com>
Subject: Writing In Sick

Bob,

I haven't been feeling well lately. I will probably be staying home today and perhaps tomorrow unless I feel better. Please tell Mark that I will be completing my assignments as soon as I get back to the office. I hope to be back Monday but it may be later than that before I'm feeling OK again.

Thanks,

Jason

--
Jason Doe
Senior Programmer
ABC Corporation, Inc.
202-555-1212 Ext. 555
jason@example.com

Microsoft(TM), we combine your email and newsgroup program into one. To which porno newsgroup do you want to accidentally send your personal email today?

Microsoft's Reputation

[Sloppy]

In all seriousness, when I read "Microsoft to do for Usenet what it did for Email & The Web", my first thought was: "Microsoft is making a newsreader that automatically executes code stored inside of Usenet posts?"

Re:usenet is ok the way it is

[Malfourmed]

Maybe Google should explain better how the Activity rating works

See, there's these pigeons...