NetNews

• public, Internet-based bulletin boards
• active to the reader: you have to go out and look at them, nothing comes to you automatically
• majority of information character-based, but distribution of binary files possible
• thousands of topics...
• many discussion groups filled with novice participants as the Internet explosion continues
• by-and-large no hierarchy to discussion (other than "threaded" readers)
• strengths: mature, wide variety of information, many discussions are near "real-time"
• weaknesses: too much information, no "private" conferences below the "domain" level"
• good for collaboration (weaknesses aside), poor for publication

• sci.med
• sci.bio
• alt.support.cancer
• alt.support.mult-sclerosis