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Usenet Villified In NY Deal With ISPs

WebProNews Staff — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 12:35:49 +0000

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s office reached agreements with three big broadband providers to pare back access to the newsgroups on Usenet, in the name of fighting child pornography.

Sprint, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon will block access to newsgroups, and track down and delete sites hosted on their servers, in an effort to stop the proliferation of child pornography. The three ISPs also plan to pay a collective $1.125 million to Cuomo’s office and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) to fund additional kiddie porn-fighting efforts.

Cuomo’s office announced the agreement, which arrived after an undercover probe by New York investigators. They discovered thousands of images distributed through 88 newsgroups; as these newsgroups were in the alt.* hierarchy, subscribers to the three ISPs could in theory access them.

The actions to be taken by the ISPs will vary, as CNET noted. Time Warner Cable will turn off all newsgroup access, while Sprint plans to cut access to the whole alt.* segment. Verizon may follow Sprint’s example.

Blocking all newsgroups does appear to be a broad approach to a problem involving a minority of such groups. As with the Internet in general, not everything in Usenet poses a threat. But no one wants to be tainted with even a suggestion of being soft on child porn, hence the rush to apply censorship with a sweeping axe rather than a skillfully-wielded scalpel.

Google Answers Crashes Out

WebProNews Staff — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 16:22:46 +0000

Even though few of Google’s services beyond search have caught on with the public like its omnipresent search engine, the company rarely kills off those projects; that made the announcement that Google Answers would be shutdown mildly surprising.

"Doctor Jones? Adieu." The villain bids Indy goodbye, Raiders of the Lost Ark

Andrew Fikes and Lexi Baugher, software engineers who worked on Google Answers, had to bid adieu to their project. The site will no longer accept new questions, and by the end of the year will stop taking new answers.

Google Answers never caught on beyond a small core of users, who would pay for answers to their questions. Like many of Google’s secondary projects, Answers was never heavily promoted.

Those two areas stand in stark contrast to Yahoo! Answers, which Yahoo offers for free. That effort has gained a tremendous amount of participation, though much of the sillier questions and answers do make it look like a glorified Usenet in practice.

Google attempted to make its Answers a viable choice for people seeking answers from the variety of users available through the project. More than 800 users over the years participated and delivered their responses to a variety of questions.

“The project started with a rough idea from Larry Page, and a small 4-person team turned it into reality in less than 4 months,” the engineers wrote. “For two new grads, it was a crash course in building a scalable product, responding to customer requests, and discovering what questions are on people’s minds.”

The pay-for-answers model probably doomed the project, especially since so many questions can be answered through a free Google search. Or Yahoo search, or Ask search, or even MSN/Live search. Google Answers needed a greater number of participants, but for-pay always has a tough time competing with free.

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David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.

Yahoo Answers Call For Quality Content

WebProNews Staff — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 19:02:20 +0000

Voting has a place on Yahoo Answers, as users of the popular question and answer site will see that become part of the site.

When Yahoo Answers first debuted in December 2005, I thought of it as a glorified Usenet with nicer colors and JavaScript. While some of the questions and answers were thoughtful and entertaining, a lot of noise entered the mix too.

The old Usenet concept of plonking a comment that did not add to the value of a thread received an Ajax-styled revival, as Yahoo disclosed the rollout of some changes to Answers that will let users self-police the site, and separate the good from the bad.

Yahoo has had a ‘report abuse’ link available for questions and answers. Joining that link will be a thumbs up/thumbs down action bar, single-click vote users can cast for what they see.

Answers users must reach Level 2 before they will be able to see that action bar. They can attain Level 2 and higher by answering and asking questions on Yahoo Answers. That prevents new users, like spammers, from signing up and skewing the results immediately. It takes a little time to move up to Level 2, and maybe that will stop some potential abusers from joining the site.

The popularity of Answers can be seen easily. Questions pop up in the queue almost continually, and answers post to them almost as fast. Yahoo has a link to Answers under the search box on its newly revamped home page, giving it a very visible placement.

That has likely helped boost its numbers, which Yahoo said consist of 14.3 million unique users providing over 30 million answers since the service launched.

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David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.

Google Mows Down Snodgrass In Court

WebProNews Staff — Thu, 16 Mar 2006 19:02:39 +0000

A federal judge in Philadelphia tossed out copyright infringement lawsuit filed against Google, where the plaintiff claimed the search engine’s archive of his Usenet posts constituted republication.

The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania found precedent under case law to dismiss the lawsuit filed by Gordon Roy Parker, also known as Ray Gordon, CNet’s Elinor Mills reported. Parker publishes his writings under the business name of Snodgrass Publishing Group.

Apparently, Parker posted a chapter from one of his e-books, “29 Reasons Not To Be A Nice Guy,” to a Usenet group, where Google’s spiders found and indexed it. The court did to Parker what the Eagles just did to Terrell Owens and gave him the boot, court documents said:

…Google’s activities, akin to those of an Internet Service Provider, do not constitute infringement.

“When an ISP automatically and temporarily stores data without human intervention so that the system can operate and transmit data to its users, the necessary element of volition (willful intent to infringe) is missing,” the court said.

The court’s 20-page decision to dismiss carries one odd statement at the end of page 1, regarding Usenet:

Google also maintains the USENET, a global system of online bulletin boards and allows users to post and search archived messages on the system.

Google owns Deja News, an archive of Usenet posts that the search advertising company acquired in 2001, according to Wikipedia. Google Groups allows users to post and read Usenet messages, but it doesn’t own Usenet, which is distributed over a number of global news servers with access provided by ISPs or providers specializing in Usenet access.

Parker plans to appeal the decision, and claimed to CNet that the court is confused about what cache means. Google really is a third-party republication.”

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David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.

Yahoo Answers The Internet

WebProNews Staff — Thu, 08 Dec 2005 18:39:29 +0000

Yahoo has taken the basic idea behind Usenet – posting a question and getting an answer from another user – and created a new website for users to ask those burning questions, like “How do I become a movie extra?”

Yahoo Answers The Internet

The latest post on Yahoo’s Search blog comes from none other than blogging legend Jeremy Zawodny, who discussed the shortcomings of web search when it comes to asking questions that a collection of keywords can’t extract via algorithmic magic from a searchable index:

When it comes to locating facts, such as the capital of India, web search rocks. But there are many times that keywords just don’t cut it-times when you need to ask a question to a group of humans. You know, real people.

Personally, I usually just write up a blog post or use our internal “random” mailing list at work. It takes almost no time to send spam (err, I mean “email”) to hundreds of coworkers who are willing to read and occasionally respond to seemingly random questions. But most people don’t have ready access to such a group.

A beta test of Yahoo Answers puts a Web 2.0 look and feel on a very old concept: the Usenet newsgroup. According to the site, “Yahoo! Answers is a place where people ask each other questions on any topic, and get answers by sharing facts, opinions, and personal experiences.”

When asking a question on Yahoo Answers, users place the question into a category, where it stays open for 14 days. That time period can be shortened or extended. Once the question has been answered, the user can select the best answer or have other users vote for the best answer.

Google offers a similar service, but the answers will cost the user money; Google said on the site its answers are completely guaranteed. And the search services at Ask Jeeves, MSN Search, and AOL Search all have made attempts at providing “smart answers” via their query boxes, with varying degrees of success.

As to the question about being a movie extra, try moving to Central Kentucky the next time Hollywood decides to shoot another horse racing movie like Seabiscuit or Dreamer. There were plenty of opportunities to be extras in both movies.

David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.

GUBA Does Graphical Search For Usenet

WebProNews Staff — Wed, 02 Nov 2005 18:57:24 +0000

With a lot of multimedia content floating around in newsgroups, one company decided the best way to find it would be via a web browser.

Om Malik’s latest blog entry discusses GUBA, a for-pay search engine that sifts through the dark underbelly of the Internet called Usenet. While Usenet newsgroups have fallen out of the public eye, they do still exist and thrive robustly.

In those newsgroups, people post thoughts on a variety of topics ranging from the mundane to the bizarre, with plenty of stops in between. Quite a few groups are devoted to visual content, like images and videos. GUBA crawls these groups every day, tags what it finds, and makes it available for subscribers.

The use of Flash to playback video forms the most compelling piece of GUBA’s service. Since Flash works on a number of platforms, having the latest proprietary media player doesn’t matter for viewing videos found with GUBA. It all plays back in the browser.

As Malik notes, the company is a success story, forming in 1998 and surviving the dot-com crash. At $14.95 per month, the company’s founder points out in Malik’s interview that GUBA has “tens of thousands” of subscribers. Soon they will provide downloads for the new video iPod, too.

Malik does fret about the potential of Napster-style litigation should the movie industry decide that the “we’re just an index” argument GUBA offers works as well for them as it did for Shawn Fanning. San Francisco is a very short flight for MPAA lawyers to take from Hollywood, after all.

David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business. Email him here.

Giganews Bucks Trend: Expands Usenet Newsgroup Service in Europe

WebProNews — Thu, 19 Aug 2004 19:43:07 +0000

Giganews Inc., a leading Usenet Newsgroup Service Provider, has expanded its service in the European market by establishing technical operations in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

The move makes Giganews the only major premium Usenet Newsgroup provider with operations in both North America and Europe, and will result in faster service for customers throughout the region.

“While other Usenet Newsgroup providers have abandoned technical operations in Europe, Giganews is expanding to meet growing customer demand around the globe,” said Giganews CEO Jonah Yokubaitis. “Our new Amsterdam location fills the vacuum that exists in Europe, and brings premium-quality Usenet Newsgroups to more users than ever before.”

Amsterdam is home to some of the world’s most dynamic network hubs and peering communities, making it an ideal base for Giganews’ expanded European operations. Located in the world-renown Sciencepark Amsterdam, Giganews’ new European network connects directly to the Amsterdam Internet Exchange (AMS-IX), one of the fastest growing Internet Exchanges in Europe.

The strategic Amsterdam location gives Giganews an additional 9,000 Mbit/sec of server cluster capacity and reduces latency for the company’s European customers, resulting in faster, higher quality news service. The move also enhances Giganews’ Usenet Newsgroup outsourcing services in the region, allowing Europe’s leading ISPs to improve news quality while eliminating the complexity and cost of running in-house Usenet Newsgroup systems.

What are Usenet Newsgroups?

The four pillars of the Internet are the World Wide Web, e-mail, FTP (file transfer protocol) and Usenet. Created in 1979, Usenet is comprised of a collection of electronic discussion forums called Newsgroups, accessed through software such as Outlook Express, where individuals exchange data and ideas. Companies such as Giganews offering access to Usenet Newsgroups are commonly called Newsgroup Service Providers (NSPs).

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Using the Usually Unused Usenet

Michel Fortin — Mon, 28 Jul 2003 14:07:32 +0000

When it comes to promoting an ebusiness, there are many other components of the online world that can also help to effectively bring traffic to one’s site — and some that are often ignored by most marketers. Aside from the Internet, newsgroups are discussion-centered bulletin boards and part of what is called the Usenet, the predecessor of today’s Internet.

According to the Internet FAQ at http://www.faqs.org, the Usenet is a “worldwide distributed discussion system.” It consists of a set of groups with names that are classified hierarchically by subject. They are similar to discussion groups in that they deal with a wide variety of topics, from the specific to the obscure — each group being dedicated to a particular theme.

Newsgroups are also wonderful places to get your message out effectively since you can easily participate in those that relate to your expertise, your locale, or your industry. More important, you should participate especially in those in which your target market congregates.

But here’s a caveat. Many of these newsgroups are moderated (i.e., your post is filtered by a moderator), and others do not allow promotional messages of any kind. Always check the group’s charter, FAQ, or guidelines before posting. In other words, if you wish to participate in any one of them, always ensure that your post is acceptable — if not, it will be considered as spam and will entail the consequences that spam normally incurs.

Maintain a Consistent Presence

Some groups completely disallow commercial messages of any kind — including long-winded signature files (the information attached at the end of each message) — while others are strictly commercial. When participating in moderated discussions, your posts must be on-topic and your signature file may often be restricted to your email address and web site URL.

The flip-side to the conservative nature of such forums is the fact that non-commercial groups can become tremendously effective for developing pre-qualified traffic — the more focused and specialized the group, the more qualified the participants. If you actively participate by posting at least once a day, you will become known as a credible expert in your field.

“Out of sight is out of mind” is certainly true here too. Since you are not overtly marketing your company or product, you must therefore maintain a consistent presence in order to spark interest. Non-commercial, moderated newsgroups are wonderful platforms through which you can build credibility let alone good, long-term prospect relationships.

On the other hand, commercial newsgroups exist for the sole purpose of advertising. And since your ad will be among a multitude of other ads, a great way to attract the attention of newsgroup readers is to post articles or “advertorials” instead of blatant advertisements.

If you produce your ad to read like an educational tool instead of a hyped-up promotional message, chances are that it will be read by more people more often. Posting some of the articles you’ve written, sample issues of your ezine(s), long copy special offers, news releases, media kits, and FAQs about your company or product are also potentially effective.

Here’s a list of newsgroups to which you can post ads. At the time of writing, most of these groups are identified as commercial or non-moderated, and open to posts of that nature. But please keep this in mind: Some only appear as non-moderated or open to commercial posts, and many change their charters (posting guidelines) from time to time.

(However, please note: Some of these newsgroups may not or may no longer allow such posts. Always — and I do mean ALWAYS — check first before posting, either by reading the group’s charter or FAQ, or by lurking for a while to get a flavor of what’s being posted. Post at your own risk.)

Many groups also carry information that may be useful for your business. You could easily find helpful advice on starting a business, selling, marketing, promoting your product, the industry in which you operate, writing, publishing, public speaking, specific software and so on. You can even post topic-oriented questions to which others reply publicly.

Since the Usenet is actually the predecessor of the Internet, there are many participants who do not surf the web at all but remain fairly active in newsgroups. Therefore, by including the Usenet in your online marketing efforts you can reach a potentially larger target market.

Make The Most of Your Post

There are a wide variety of newsgroup topics on the Usenet, which include specific interests, industries, geographic locations, tastes, activities, themes, and so on. Your goal, therefore, is to pick those that are especially frequented by your target market. In other words, you want your post to be read by those that fit within your demographics as much as possible.

If you cater to car manufacturers for example, there are groups dedicated specifically to that very industry. Other groups also include car aficionados, auto mechanics, cities in which car manufacturers operate (e.g., Detroit), car parts suppliers, race cars, and so on. Basically, select appropriate groups for posting your messages so that they are targeted as well.

When posting to commercial (or non-moderated) newsgroups, your signature file should not be limited to your identification. It should also include descriptive information about your product, its special benefits, special offers, free offers (like a free catalog, a free report, or a free newsletter subscription), your physical address, any cross-promotion offers, and so on.

Moderated newsgroups, however, are a little more conservative. Avoid posting messages that appear self-serving or promotional, and use a signature file of no more than 5-7 lines. If these rules are not followed, your post may likely be considered as spam and you’ll be banned from the group along with the possibility of losing your Internet connection altogether.

Nevertheless, one of the greatest ways to use targeted newsgroups is to conduct marketing research. Among others, you can obtain ideas for potential new products or services, or suggestions on how to improve your current ones. Ultimately, never underestimate the Usenet for gathering market intelligence let alone for marketing itself. Keep in mind that many potential clients (both Internet and non-Internet users alike) congregate there.

Michel Fortin is a direct response copywriter and consultant dedicated to turning sales messages into powerful magnets. Get a free copy of his book, “The 10 Commandments of Power Positioning,” when you subscribe to his free monthly ezine, “The Profit Pill.” See http://SuccessDoctor.com/ now!