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USENET is a system used for the exchanging of messages between computers. It is a collection of newsgroups, similar to bulletin board systems. These messages and newsgroups are arranged into interest groups, whose characteristics resemble that of a virtual community. From its initial introduction to its current form, USENET has always had very few rules and exercised leniency in restrictions in regards to the contribution of content by users (Steinmuller, in Mansell, 2002). Thus, it enables users to have an outlet for the discussion of controversial topics such as political and cultural extremism and downloading pornography, while still catering for the usual discussion topics.
The newsgroups are catagorised into a hierarchy, with their content falling into one of seven major categories:
Comp computer science, hardware, software, hobbyists
Misc miscellaneous: law, jobs, investments, sales
Sci sciences, research
Soc social issues, socialising, cultures
Talk debates, open-ended topics, endless talk
News network information, maintenance, software
Rec hobbies, recreational information
USENET started in 1979, as a newsgroup experiment by Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis of Duke University. This experiment was to use Unix to Unix CoPy to connect machines as a means of exchanging information between users. Truscott and Ellis began with a small network of three machines, with traffic handled by various shell scripts, however, these were never released to the public. The form that was eventually released to the public was conventionally compiled, and known as “A.�? As the usage of this version expanded, it was rewritten by Mark Horton and Matt Glickman and released as “B�? or “Bnews.�? However, this version is slowly becoming obsolete, thus another version was written, released as “C�? or “C-News.�? The current releases are mostly “C-News�? versions (Anderson, 1996).
Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP)was introduced in 1986 as a alternate and effective way to distribute USENET articles over TCP/IP, as opposed to the informal Internet transfers of UUCP traffic.
In a survey conducted in the year 2000, of those members associated with a online community, 37 percent received or sent messages on a daily basis to USENET newsgroups, with 44 percent particpating at least once a week (Quan-Haase and Wellman, 2004). Although the amount of USENET traffic has steadily increased over time, AOL announced that it would discontinue its integrated USENET service at the beginning of 2005, due to the increasing popularity of weblogs, chat forums and online conferencing. There is a possibility that USENET will become obsolete as its majority of users, comprised of old-timers, die off. However, USENET’s unique characteristics, such as its lack of ‘real-time’ discussion, may allow it to continue its reign (Everything2, 2001).
Bulletin Board Systems (BBS)
More Information about USENET
Anderson, A. (1996) USENET History. http://www.tldp.org/LDP/nag/node256.html (Accessed on 26 October 2005)
Everything2. (2001). USENET. http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1187779 (Accessed on 27 October, 2005)
Quan-Haase, A. Wellman, B. (2004). How Does the Internet Affect Social Capital?. In Social Capital and Information Technology, ed. Huysman, M and Wulf, V. pp. 113 - 131. Hong Kong: SNP Best-set Typesetter Ltd.
Steinmuller, E. W. (2002). Virtual Communities and the New Economy. In Inside the Communication Revolution: Evolving Patterns of Social and Technical Interaction, ed. Mansell, R. pp. 21 - 54. New York: Oxford University Press Inc.
