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

Re:Slightly Off-Topic: I'd be happy if...

[Antithetical]

Here's a good way to get those usenet responses back and keep your real email hidden, disposable addresses:

Spam Gourmet

Re:usenet is ok the way it is

[Shaklee39]

Google already does this to a certain degree, although I don't know if their Activity ranking takes into account replies to topics or just number of messages or what. If you look at the Google Groups listings you'll see a rough measure of their activity as shown by a green bar. For example, if you look at the rec.arts.comics.* hierarchy you'll see rac.xbooks has no activity. And sure enough, if you go to that group you'll see 2 posts from 2003, 8 from 2002, and a handful of older ones. rac.european has an almost full bar and looking there shows 5-10 posts each month. The others have completely full bars showing lots of posts each day. Maybe Google should explain better how the Activity rating works; I didn't see a mention in the faq. Or perhaps show more detail than just the green bar.

Re:meh

[Anonymous Coward]

Most news SERVERS are running unix. The major clients are running on windows. I would think agent and outlook express are the top clients.

Re:usenet is ok the way it is

[FunkyELF]

Yeah, but if microsoft wants to play a part in usenet they need to get the bugs out of their Outlook Express. I use grabit because OE freezes all the time trying to decode files that are contained in more than 100 posts. Also, it can't even decode yEnc.

Re:usenet is ok the way it is

[antiMStroll]

Usenet is still one of the best computer support resources available and Google Groups has unearthed the solution to innumerable problems for me. Like Slashdot, be prepared to sift through a lot of misinformation to find your answer, but Usenet has the advantage of not having moderators push the wrong one up. Usenet's division into areas of interest also helps me discover new music constantly, and there are some real vibrant communities online. One good example is alt.binaries.pictures.aviation. The irony is that Microsoft deliberately chose not to support Usenet a decade ago. Decoding binaries in Windows has long been a trivial exercise with third party software such as Xnews, Agent99 or FreeAgent. Setting it up is usually no harder than typing 'news.mysip.com' in a config field. My guess is their desperation for any new growth area is leading them to revisit Usenet as a 'feature'.

For those who haven't tried Usenet, don't believe the 'cesspool' hype. My ISP provides over 30,000 Usenet groups, most of which never see posts. Some groups are cesspools of viagra, porn and evidence eliminator spam, but 30,000 unmoderated Slashdots would be no different. Check out Fuckedcompany.com's online forums if you think cesspools are a Usenet-only phenomenum.

Marc Smith's work is actually pretty cool

[tadghin]

I've been following it ever since he first did Netscan back at UCLA. In fact, I used Netscan to do the statistics for the Esther Dyson Release 1.0 issue on open source in 1998, projecting the relative size of open source communities by comparing their usenet footprint (as well as other stats, like size of conferences and mailing lists.)

We had Marc do a presentation on what he's doing at the last O'Reilly Emerging Technologies Conference, and it was very well received. Marc's at Microsoft Research, and he's a guy slashdotters would all relate to if you actually knew him.

Defense of Usenet

[shopi]

Newsgroups are very far from being a wasteland as some people claim. For me, as a cs student, it is almost a daily necessity, because the same questions I could have about languages I'm learning, or complex algorithms, or whatever, are already answered by very knowledgeable people, and I don't even have to disturb anyone. I usually get answers in matter of seconds.

Most of the tech groups (and more than any other medium) have experts in their field who donate their spare time to answer newbies and have great conversations with each other. I think that is pretty unique.

The same happens in many non-tech groups. I visit rec.music.classical.recordings frequently, looking for cds recommendations or new music to try. Some of the participants are players in big orchestras, so I know I get great advice. And spam is a non-issue, since the group is moderated.

I use google for text reading and gravity for binaries.(OE is useless for more than basic browsing)

OTOH, I fail to see why usenet would be affected at all by anything microsoft could do. All they are doing is data gathering and statistics analysis, in order to determine what are the most relevant and user-friendly newsgroups (for instance, the groups with most replies). And if this can help to bring more people, then it's welcome.

Usenet is a valuable and unique resource, because what it does isn't really covered by the alternatives. And it's also Internet history.

Re:Leave us alone please.

[Angry Pixie]

USENET isn't worthwhile only to porn addicts, pirates, and geaks. Those of us in the social sciences use it quite often. There are some very good communities on USENET for discussions of international politics, economics issues, etc. USENET is also great for some entertainment. There are a lot of active groups with a great sense of community that meet to discuss hobbies like art collection, carpentry, or even train wrecks like the Anna Nicole show.

In addition to BWJones' comments, USENET is often much more efficient than equivalent web-based forums. I don't have to deal with cookies, improperly formatted HTML, binary advertisements, etc. If the answer is there on USENET, I'll surely find it faster than if I were to navigate a website.

Re:usenet is ok the way it is

[usotsuki]

Hm...

Fake or not, the association with the name "Gordon Letwin" (creator of OS/2's HPFS) suggests to me that it could be relatively authentic...

-uso.