Newsgroups

In 1995, when Internet-Connect (ICI) first started offering internet services, it supplied a full newsgroup feed to its' customers.  The company purchased the newsgroup service and it was part of the standard service offered to customers (dialup connection, email, and newsgroups).  At that time most Internet Service Providers (ISPs) were providing news service the same way.

In the late 1990s, the technology became available to make newsgroups (as well as email) browsable.  This made news service very competitive since advertising space could be sold on browsable newsgroups.  The company that ICI purchased news service from decided to drop out of the news service business early in 1999.  Knowing that there were free news services on the net, ICI decided that it no longer needed to pay for the service for its' customers.

With the implementation of Microsoft's discussion groups and Internet Relay Chat (IRC), newsgroups have tended to become outdated.  In the past, you posted a message to a specific group and then came back later to see if anyone had an answer or solution posted for you.  IRC is more of a real time solution (if you can get someone to talk to you!).  Although Microsoft calls them "Discussion Groups", you still post and read similar to IRC and newsgroups.

If you wish to take a look at a browsable news server, we recommend the following:
http://news.interbulletin.com
There are others out there on the net.  All you need to do is go to a search engine and check for "free newsgroups" and there should be plenty of choices.

For all the details (very detailed; geeks and nerds will love it) of usenet or newsgroups, check out the history at:
http://news.interbulletin.com/usenet_his.html