Newsgroups

Newsgroups... I thought whats the diff between List Servers and Newsgroups, ahh but there is a difference. Newsgroups are a group of enthusiasts who gather online to discuss a topic of their choice. Be it favourite music, foodies swapping recipes, religion, relationships and happiness. The list is unlimited - Google provides the Newsgroup mecca I think, but there are other sources, Google I think just has the monopoly.

Bleary eyed from a week of full time work as a Web Developer .. I had to research and lurk in a Newsgroup .. I choose the Facepainters Group. Yes there is Facepainters group. Hehehe this is serious stuff. People do this for a living. It was a high activity group with over 1000 members worldwide all discussing the latest trend in Facepainting, it seems there is a market for this like body painting, even celebs are roped in to model the artists creations. It is amazing what this paper has done for me. Opened up a whole new world to so many different things, Facepainting I thought was for the kids at Fair or Fete or something clowns did at Xmas parties.

My conclusions on List Servers are that they serve a more informational purpose and possibly more business like, where Newsgroups overlap by being informational but also have users starting a groups for enthusiasts of certain topics to join and discuss the ins and outs of the chosen topic. Information sharing is what I get from Newsgroups. They can be one or two people discussing .. through to a whole community of users and hundreds if not thousands of different threads going in all directions.