Google Groups - Technical advice dating back to 1981
Jim Hedger
Groups. Google Groups is a collection of NEWSGROUPS, much of which
stems from the USENET bulletin board service Google acquired in
February 2001 which it purchased from Deja.Com.
Usenet started in 1979 at Duke University as a bulletin board system
allowing a then tiny number of users to post text messages and replies
that combined to form a discussion thread. Twenty five years ago this
concept was so revolutionary, it formed the backbone of an interactive
Net until the massive adoption of the World Wide Web in the early
1990s. Thousands of newsgroups were posted to Usenet covering virtually
any topic a computer user might be interested in from social to
financial to technical issues. Millions of smaller bulletin boards
started forming becoming the BBS clubs that dominated the early
commercial Internet and creating the first generation to identify as
"netizens" or citizens of the Internet. This was the group that set
the basic traditions or social norms of the Web as we know it today.
>From Netiquette to the open-source attitude that basic building-block
information can not be "owned", we owe our online evolution in
large part to the folks who popularized Usenet. Boasting a database of
documents dating back to 1981, Google Groups offers the deepest well of
information from the earliest days of the Net, and being Google, makes
those documents fairly easy to find. That alone is enough to generate a
great deal of interest.
Google Groups has another feature which will likely prove more relevant
to today's generation of "Netizens". Users are encouraged to start
their own and participate in other news and discussion groups. Like
other news-groups such as Yahoo Groups, Google is facilitating another
level of information sharing for its loyal users. Starting a group is
extremely simple, especially if you have already registered a Gmail
account. I opened one last night as a D-I-Y SEO news and discussion
board which, by the way, anyone interested is welcome to join.
(http://groups-beta.google.com/group/SEO-SEM_News). Hopefully this and
other tech-related groups will grow in the future based on the
free-information traditions of the past.
For Internet workers in virtually any sector from programming to
development to marketing, there is, or soon will be), a group that
meets your interests and answers your questions. The same can be said
for various interest groups from political associations to PTAs. While
Google Groups will not displace established Forums, it will provide
another essential, collaborative problem solving and communications
tool. The feature also offers Google a few million more gigabytes of
real estate for paid advertising, though AdWords do not seem to be
currently displayed in the groups I've visited in the past few days.
slimjim
searches in google groups. I got my first ever google server error
message when I tried to join this group. I had to get here from
Yahoo.com thru an article you published. I saved the server error
message. I think I may turn it into a desktop wall paper. I guess the
beta ain't so stable right now. I wish they'd give folks a choice
instead of cramming this crap down our throats. DejaNews doesn't seem
so bad when you compare it to the beta. These side "groups" seem to be
a ripoff of yahoo groups. They may drive some traffic away from
legitimiate usenet groups. But since 1994 or so, every third message on
usenet seems to be " I know you are, but what am I ?" so what will that
leave us with? The irate and the illiterate arguing amongst themselves,
it sounds a lot like congress.
scr...@gmail.com
Just curious if anyone in this group has been around since way back
when?
Oh the memories...:) You had to wait 24 hours for your message to post
on the BB. Where exactly is it that we can go back and view some of
these
old outdated messages? Can you go back and view posts from back then?
Best Regards,
Monica