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Accessing newsgroups on and off the Web

Some people use Google Groups as their only interface to Usenet for reading and posting messages. They have no choice in some situations, such as when a user doesn’t own a computer and accesses the Internet on a public computer. When there is a choice, though, my recommendation is to perform most of your active Usenet participation using a stand-alone newsgroup reader. This program might not be the same as your e-mail program. (They’re not the same for AOL users.) Outlook Express, probably the most popular e-mail program, offers full newsgroup functionality. In addition, many dedicated newsreaders are available as freeware and shareware downloads. The Netscape browser/e-mail/newsgroup program is free and quite advanced. X-News is another good (and free) one.

It might seem strange to advice against using Google Groups for your daily Usenet lifestyle. Let’s be clear about its strengths and weaknesses. Google Groups is best at archiving and presenting a searchable database of Usenet history. It functions also as an interface for posting and daily reading, but its interactive features fall way behind those of a stand-alone program. Also, importantly, your ISP’s newsgroup server is likely to be more up-to-the-minute than Google’s server, and that factor definitely affects the Usenet experience. So, my advice is to use Google Groups for searching and when traveling or forced away from your own computer. Otherwise, use a desktop program for subscribing to, reading and posting to the current day’s Usenet.

Usenet Newsgroups versus Google Groups

The new version of Google Groups incorporates several changes, the biggest being this: You can now create your own group. The first version of Google Groups served exclusively as a Usenet archive. The second version continues that tradition, but deemphasizes historical searching. The focus is now on current-day communicating, and group creation is designed to gather clusters of people who already know each other or who share an interest. Of course, that’s what Usenet is for, and with more than fifty thousand existing newsgroups, you wouldn’t think any more were needed. But creating a group gives you control, which is fun and useful. You determine who is in and who is out; you control the mailings that can go to the group’s members.

The coexistence of Usenet groups and homemade Google groups adds a layer of complexity. One way to clarify this complexity would be to define it clearly by separating Usenet groups from Google Groups. The risk, though, lies in forcing users to approach Google Groups as if it housed two distinct domains.

Google prefers to offer an integrated experience, so it mixes the homemade groups right in with the Usenet groups. In fact, the word Usenet is not found much at the site — all groups are simply Groups. They are all bundled into the same interface, so when you build up a volume of favorite reading material, it is likely to come from a mixed bag of sources, some in Usenet and some in Google. You are not supposed to notice this, and indeed, there is no point dwelling on the difference.

However, there is one important distinction between Usenet newsgroups and Google groups: Homemade Google groups can’t be seen outside Google Groups. Usenet newsgroups can be accessed in a stand-alone newsgroup reader and in many e-mail programs. Homemade Google groups can be accessed only through the Web-based interface of Google Groups (or through an Atom feed, which I get into later).

Listing your Site with Internet Search Services

This time, have you get listed on search engines such as Yahoo! and Lycos and Google? Frankly, it’s getting more difficult. Many of the big search services charge for listings. But some let you contribute a listing for free, though there’s no guarantee if or when you’ll see your site included in their databases.

You can increase chances the service of the search engine will list your site by including special keywords and site descriptions in the HTML commands for your Web pages. You place these keywords after a special HTML command (the (META) tag), making them invisible to the casual viewer of your site.

Lucky Boyd and John Moen have created many Web sites for different purposes. One purpose is to reach different markets. Another purpose improve rankings on Google as search engines: by linking one site to several other sites, the site is considered more “popular” and its ranking rises.