Re: Where is everyone going now?
"Victor Bazarov" wrote:
The drop in traffic isn't because of child pornography charges.
If the system were healthy, it would have no trouble shaking
such charges off and/or dealing with the underlying problems.
It's because the newsgroups have become like public restrooms in
Moscow in the 1970s and 80s - few and far between, yet still
filthy, not working, without toilet paper or soap...
*Neglected*.
Unfortunately, you're right. Moreover, after Google acquired
DejaNews archives the search deteriorated with every year. I
remember using Deja for looking technical info, I could find
useful answer to similar or related question no matter how old the
answer was. Now it seems that Google reindexing Usenet archives
every couple of months and discards half of the data. I cannot
find a discussions that happened a couple of years ago!
There is no profit in running a newsserver. One can't really
sell any ad space on newsgroups, can one? Or push their own
products and agenda on a bulletin board... I mean, without
people quickly becoming disgusted with the pusher.
I think that Google's idea to provide web access to Usenet was
right. This way you can get the best of both worlds: those who
want to connect via news reader still can do this, and those who
prefer web interface won't need any additional software besides a
browser. As a perk for seeing ad banners, web users cold get some
nice features that Usenet lacks, like automatic notification of
answers, watching specific threads etc etc. So, Usenet could've
been thriving again.
However, for some reason Google couldn't pull it off. They
couldn't monetize on Usenet and destroyed precious Deja archives
at the same time.
Alex