| BBS vs. Usenet vs. Facebook [message #25790] |
Wed, 21 November 2012 18:03  |
hancock4
Messages: 6746
Registered: December 2011
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Per a recent discussion on Internet origins...
In earlier days dial up BBS were popular with PC users. At that time,
many predicted they'd be all the rage, assuming a position that Social
Media (eg Facebook, Twitter, Myspace etc) assume today. But in
reality that only had a relatively small number of people.
Then came Usenet, and again that was predicted to be all the rage but
it wasn't.
But today we have "Social Media" which _does_ seem to be all rage and
extremely popular. It had mostly young folks at the start, but now
many older people, too. It's used in troubled countries to
communicate within and without. It also has a downside with
discussions getting quite nasty and targeting children for ridicule
among their peers.
So, what is it about today's Social Media that is so attractive
compared to older forms? Is it just "user friendliness"? If so, I
find that surprising since the text-based BBS and Usenet were always
very easy to use with reasonable software. Indeed, some BBS' evolved
to support Usenet access.
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| Re: BBS vs. Usenet vs. Facebook [message #25791 is a reply to message #25790] |
Wed, 21 November 2012 18:38  |
Andy Burns
Messages: 423
Registered: June 2012
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hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
> In earlier days dial up BBS were popular with PC users.
> Then came Usenet
> But today we have "Social Media"
> So, what is it about today's Social Media that is so attractive
> compared to older forms?
Dunno, I used various BBSs, still use USENET and never bother with
social media
> Is it just "user friendliness"?
I think it caught on with the "the web is the internet" population.
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| Re: BBS vs. Usenet vs. Facebook [message #25808 is a reply to message #25790] |
Wed, 21 November 2012 21:35 |
Rod Speed
Messages: 3507
Registered: January 2012
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<hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote in message
news:4a6e80b6-238b-487c-8ce1-9ea24edf4349@m4g2000yqb.googlegroups.com...
> Per a recent discussion on Internet origins...
>
> In earlier days dial up BBS were popular with PC users. At that time,
> many predicted they'd be all the rage, assuming a position that Social
> Media (eg Facebook, Twitter, Myspace etc) assume today. But in
> reality that only had a relatively small number of people.
>
> Then came Usenet, and again that was predicted to be all the rage but
> it wasn't.
>
> But today we have "Social Media" which _does_ seem to be all rage and
> extremely popular. It had mostly young folks at the start, but now
> many older people, too. It's used in troubled countries to
> communicate within and without. It also has a downside with
> discussions getting quite nasty and targeting children for ridicule
> among their peers.
> So, what is it about today's Social Media that is so attractive
> compared to older forms?
Mostly, everyone already has what they need to use it.
> Is it just "user friendliness"?
Nope, its much more than once something gets up a real
head of steam, it becomes unstoppable. usenet never did.
> If so, I find that surprising since the text-based BBS and Usenet
> were always very easy to use with reasonable software.
The real problem with both was that most had never even
heard of it at all, so how easy it was to use was irrelevant.
That wasn't the case with the web, everyone knows
that it was there, even if they didn't use it.
> Indeed, some BBS' evolved to support Usenet access.
And the net was used to move messages between them
instead of using long distance modem calls too.
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| Re: BBS vs. Usenet vs. Facebook [message #25809 is a reply to message #25790] |
Thu, 22 November 2012 00:31 |
Michael Black
Messages: 2799
Registered: February 2012
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On Wed, 21 Nov 2012, hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
> Per a recent discussion on Internet origins...
>
> In earlier days dial up BBS were popular with PC users. At that time,
> many predicted they'd be all the rage, assuming a position that Social
> Media (eg Facebook, Twitter, Myspace etc) assume today. But in
> reality that only had a relatively small number of people.
>
> Then came Usenet, and again that was predicted to be all the rage but
> it wasn't.
>
Usenet came about the same time as the BBSs unless we want to start the
clock with Computer Memory in Berkely about 1974. As I've mentioned
before, in mid-1978, Byte had an article by someone who had set up a BBS,
maybe the first one, on an S-100 bus. Ironically, in the same issue there
was the second of a three part article about CIEnet, something like
Community Informatin Exchange, more an idea of how to network the home
cmoputers though I think some work was being done in California. I
thought somebody connected with SAIl or the like was one of the authors,
but I may not be remembering properly. It's the first time I saw mention
of arpanet (though it was pretty much a footnote in the article), so the
authors were familiar with it.
Usenet started in 1979. Obviously small, but there. And the claims were
always that the originator had known about arpanet or even had experience
with it, and wanted that sort of thing for the "rest of us", so it linked
computers via phone lines, hopefully each hop a local or near local call.
Fidonet started in 1983 or 84 and I've never seen Tom Jennings admit to
being influenced by anything. It really was a networked BBS, indeed if
I remember properly it was first about email then the "groups". It tended
to provide a uniform environement from BBS to BBS besides the networking.
Byte ran an article about Usenet in 83 or 84. It's also worth noting that
when I saw the Grateful Dead at Canada's WOnderland in June of 1984, Larry
Brilliant's networking company was thanked in the program. It was about a
year later that CoEvolution Quarterly (or was it the WHolle Earth Review
by then?) started up The Well. So in 86 or 87 the magazine ran an article
about Usenet, which maybe was the first "mainstream" article about it (in
quotes because it was hardly a mainstream magazine, but it wasn't a
technical or computer magazine).
> But today we have "Social Media" which _does_ seem to be all rage and
> extremely popular. It had mostly young folks at the start, but now
> many older people, too. It's used in troubled countries to
> communicate within and without. It also has a downside with
> discussions getting quite nasty and targeting children for ridicule
> among their peers.
>
I should point out that when I was trying to get groups to use the local
newsgroup back in 1997, wanting to buildup a cluster like a newspaper
(where someone might read the paper for a specific thing, but on the way
to the sports or comic page, see something else of value) one guy said
"it's too technical" (I think in reference to the internet in general) and
while I don't think I spoke it, I know I thought "no, it's a social
space". So I'd argue that "social media" is really marketing, we were
doing it before those branded spaces came along.
> So, what is it about today's Social Media that is so attractive
> compared to older forms? Is it just "user friendliness"? If so, I
> find that surprising since the text-based BBS and Usenet were always
> very easy to use with reasonable software. Indeed, some BBS' evolved
> to support Usenet access.
>
I don't know about the impact, but I think one difference is that in the
old days, you had to read about it. And often it was a book, you'd get
interested because of something and the book would guide you through the
bits of available.
I think in more recent times, its propagation has been offline, "old
networks" passing the latest fad on. I didn't hear about myspace until it
was mostly giving way to facebook. It wasn't making any inroads here
(Usenet) and I didn't read about it in the newspaper until quite late.
I have my doubts about it in the first place, but some of it is that by
the time I knew about it, it was late, I'd be the newcomer rather than
being the oldtimer.
But that sets the tone. IN the old days, we came for maybe vague reasons,
and our expectations were about talking to people we didn't know. I had a
modem towards the end of 1985, and every so often I'd dial up a BBS, get
registered (they never let you look around before you registered, at least
the ones I called at that point) and then find there wasn't much there.
Tose were isolated BBSs, a relative handful of users (when there were lots
of BBSs in general, even locally, and not networked. I wasn't interested
in that, a tiny percentage of the population, talking to them because
that's who were there. I did that for years, and found the same
isolation so I never stuck with it. It wasn't until late 1994, in
anticipation of getting internet access somehow that I tried some more and
that time stayed online.
Once I found some networked BBSs (and I just likely was finding the wrong
ones) it was different. The Fidonet echos (yes, that's what they were
called, I couldn't remember a minute ago) provide a chance to talk to
people about specific things, rather than talking about what the users
wanted to talk about.
Then I got full internet access in August of 1996, and it was an
interesting time since it was both late and early in terms of growing
internet access, and it was still early in terms of creating a "local
presence". Inet 96 met here in June that year, and some of the papers
presented were about "community networking" and the like. It was a shift,
until you had enough density in any given area, there couldn't be a local,
so it was great to find newsgroups where you could talk about specific
things.
I put a lot of effort into that local newsgroup, posting about things that
interested me that were happeing about town. I was "blogging" before the
term came along. It was precisely because it was a "free" space that I
was able to try to do new things. I wasn't forcing myself on the
newsgroup, I participated in the conversations and was one of the better
ones to supply answers when people asked questions. But every so often,
I'd post about upcoming used book salses, or free ice cream at Ben &
Jerrys, or upcoming dance or theatre things. One time I went to an improv
marathon, having posted about it ahead of time, and when I got home at
4am, I posted a recap, seeing the medium as good for telling a story after
the fact as well as advertising it ahead of time. Anotehr time a woman
was having a "rockathon" at a coffe shop to raise money for some charity,
and as soon as I got home from talking to her, I posted about it in the
local newsgroup, as immediate as could be when I had no laptop or wifi. I
always made the deliberate decision to use my own words, not just cut and
paste from elsewhere.
The idae was to post a wider variety of things to lure a wider audience,
to make the "community" wider. I failed at that, the groups hung to
their own space (websites that didnt' say much, weren't used to tell
of upcoming events, and mailing lists to keep those they already knew
informed). Nothing had changed, the groups were thinking in terms of 1978
when they couldn't afford to talk to a wide audience, so they kept their
core members informed. Things had changed, they didn't know it. Or maybe
they didn't want to talk to people they didn't know, it's hard to know for
sure.
There were people like me who wanted to talk about things, and to people
they didn't know, and then the newer wave coming to the internet thought
it was about commerce, so they could buy things online (they never thought
aobut it more like mailorder) or talk back to old media.
If you look at the trends as access became more accessible, many were most
interested in email, so they could keep in contact with those they already
knew (so it was just a new medium, rather than a new way of relating).
The branded spaces seemed to address that, setting up places where people
could interact with their own "clique". Let the grandparents know what
was happening, keep in touch with school friends, that sort of thing. I
have no idea if the branded spaces made it easier (they were about
interaction, something generally missing from "the web", and certainly for
those who thought making webpages was complicated, and I came across
plenty of those something like myspace or facebook does that for you,
they never realize they have a webpage).
So they started up, and it passed from person to person. The kid at
school tells someone, and so on. I was here on the internet all this
time, and I never heard of myspace or facebook. They were well
established by then. So it was about "friends" and that's how it seemed
to propagate.
You can't make decisions by following the pack, but that's what happened.
People rushed to it because 'everyone is there", they didn't try things
like Usenet and reject it, they were never lured here in the first place.
It's a weird space since it is about commerce, facebook wants to make
money, and there is no real line between personal and commerce in terms of
the pages. That bookstore chain wants me to "friend" them because it's
advertising for them, that other store wants me to enter a contest on
facebook because they must be getting something out of it (or else why not
just keep it on their own webpage?). And groups are now making the
decision to dump webpages instead of facebook, when facebook generally
doesn't turn up in websearches. They feel justified since "everyone has
facebook" but it's self-perpetuating, if they use only facebook the choice
is to ignore the group (like I do) or join facebook. It's a sad part of
the internet, where the users are the marketers.
I look at the same groups who wouldn't use their webpage fifteen years ago
for news, wouldn't help build up a local cluster (just like a newspaper
but without the moderating) and now they rush to facebook saying 'we don't
like it, but we have to use it". Well, if they'd been doing things from
the start instead of being clueless, they would have helped to build up
the local. If they'd seen the internet about 'getting the word out" then
they'd have been doing it all along, and that would have driven their
internet policy.
They generally are still not "getting it" since they aren't getting their
word out to everyone (I've wasted endless time on the local Fringe
Festival, and yet ticket sales have stayed about the same for a decade,
even though they keep adding more shows each year), and I'm tired of
having to wade through things to find when some event is happening (either
because nobody puts it in an obvious place, or they dont' keep a
consistent place for news). I had to dig last year to find specifics of
some event, and checking a twitter feed, I didnt' see substance, I saw
endless "awesomes" and the like, the current equivalent of "me too" in
newsgroups. They can't see the lack of substance since the point is to
keep in tocuh with each other, not change people or keep them informed.
What has to be remembered when looing at 'social media" is that it's a
mass. It keeps getting mentioned in old media because it's so big, not
because someone has said anything really important. If it travels well,
it gets mentioned in old media, yet somewhere I have a post from 1994
about The Good Times Virus (it wasn't, but it was a warning that travelled
like a virus) where I say something about how it travelled well because
people believed it without looking close. The masses are easily swayed,
so the silliest things have high travel. Every time "social media" is
mentioned, it further helps to perpetuate it, to give value to it.
But the reality is it's now like the telephone, that nobody every says
much about. The masses are using it that way, telling their friends
things that they heard soemwhere else, rather than as a soapbox to say
something significant to change the world. Yes, there are exceptions, but
the biggness is the reason for attention. Last year there was all the
"occoupy movement", it seemed so manipulative, able to bring people out
like a flash mob without any real consideration of what was going on. But
they'd mimmick back that "in Egypt facebook and twitter enabled the
revolution". Yes it did, but the mass doesn't know that in China in 1989,
they used fax machines to organize the students, 30 years ago it wsa
telephone trees, in 1967 it was a Gestetner machine in Haight Ashbury that
helped to rally the masses for all the events and then later that year
Abby Hoffman followed in New York, using Bob Foss's overnight radio show
on WBAI to call the teenage yippies to various events.
The technology isn't magical. SOmetimes things can happen because a lot
of people independently see the same thing, other itmes, it takes endless
organizing to get a few people out. But the technology used is whatever
there is. The ability to email a gorup of people to get them to a
demonstration isn't a new thing, and any narrowcasting is going to be like
that. The internet should have been revolutionary for giving a chance to
talk to people you don't know, to convert them to your cause, rather than
just bring them to a demonstration. That's a significant difference.
When I first got full internet access in 1996, I saw it as an
'alternative". A chance to talk about or promote things that didn't get
into old media. I was basically nanny when they were making that film
about Noam Chomsky in 1990, and either then or as soon as I got internet
access, I realized he was wrong. Old media filters, because it has a
small bandwidth. How it filters is secondary. But online is the
antithesis of Chomsky's thought, here you don't get filtered. Yet the
soapbox fails unless you have friends, since the shared spaces are gone
(or not used at least) while every space belongs to someone (mostly
corporation, but at the least someone specific). I am shcoked by how much
the internet has gone like old media, not just in terms of most of the
talk being about whatever story is on the latest news (I remember posting
about the local regional science fair, precisely because it never got
coverage until it was over), but generally we are now organized like old
media. I think it's great that a "nobody" takes initiative and writes
a bout something that interests them, the internet gives them the printing
press. But those days are mostly gone, those "nobody's are ignored unless
they can claim to be a "journalist", and then we see the rise of what
amonts to magazines online, however small the readership, rather than
someone valued for what they say. It hasn't really changed things, it's
the same status quo as before.
Michael
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| Re: BBS vs. Usenet vs. Facebook [message #25814 is a reply to message #25809] |
Thu, 22 November 2012 03:18 |
Mike Spencer
Messages: 1010
Registered: January 2012
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Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> writes:
> [big snip]
>
> ...online is the antithesis of Chomsky's thought, here you don't get
> filtered. Yet the soapbox fails unless you have friends, since the
> shared spaces are gone (or not used at least) while every space
> belongs to someone (mostly corporation, but at the least someone
> specific). I am shcoked by how much the internet has gone like old
> media, not just in terms of most of the talk being about whatever
> story is on the latest news (I remember posting about the local
> regional science fair, precisely because it never got coverage until
> it was over), but generally we are now organized like old media.
>
> [snip]
I've been using a local newsgroup (now lurking) that has accumulated a
number of belligerent, variously abusive, potty-mouthed, sneering
and/or gloating bullies who attack anyone who disagrees with them,
especially with their rigid political stance.
In the old days, the relatively sane regulars would killfile the
bozos and that would be that. Unfortunately, most of regulars
here and now are either:
+ technically challenged and can't figure out kill files, or
+ are of a do-gooder (small-l) liberal mind and feel that any
problem can be solved by reasonable discourse. (That's what
oldtimers see as feeding the trolls), or
+ post interminably about the problem of the intruders' attitudes.
(so-called meta-posts)
The result has been that a dozen or so of the long-time regulars moved
first to an abandoned, nominally unrelated group. Well and good but they
were discovered by the bozos who followed them with cross-posts to
both groups.
Now the refugees have moved to a moderated, invitation-only Yahoo
Group. Yahoo, as Michael Black observes, "belongs to someone...[a]
corporation". You have do do it as a web forum or as a mailing list.
You have to register with Yahoo. I was invited to join, gave it a
whirl in the mailing list format with an otherwise unused email
address. Not for me. All the stuff that Michael Black likes about
Usenet is lost and I have to be enfeoffed to Yahoo.
Too bad.
Afterthought: Maybe I should post here the names of the two newsgroups
and invite hardend Usenet paladins to flash-crowd and Mau-Mau the
bozos. Hmmm....
--
Mike Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada
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| Re: BBS vs. Usenet vs. Facebook [message #25822 is a reply to message #25814] |
Thu, 22 November 2012 08:04 |
Peter Flass
Messages: 8529
Registered: December 2011
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On 11/22/2012 3:18 AM, Mike Spencer wrote:
>
> Now the refugees have moved to a moderated, invitation-only Yahoo
> Group. Yahoo, as Michael Black observes, "belongs to someone...[a]
> corporation". You have do do it as a web forum or as a mailing list.
> You have to register with Yahoo. I was invited to join, gave it a
> whirl in the mailing list format with an otherwise unused email
> address. Not for me. All the stuff that Michael Black likes about
> Usenet is lost and I have to be enfeoffed to Yahoo.
>
The thing I like about Yahoo is the registration process. The groups
are not moderated (I'm not sure it's an option) but can be moderated
retroactively if needed. I administrate a couple of groups. I'm happy
to let anyone join, maybe with an admonitory note if the registrant
sounds like a headhunter, etc. But if someone starts spamming I can
toss them and can their spam. If this NG were like that I can envision
a couple of posters getting the boot.
--
Pete
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| Re: BBS vs. Usenet vs. Facebook [message #25868 is a reply to message #25790] |
Thu, 22 November 2012 12:42 |
Charlie Gibbs
Messages: 5479
Registered: January 2012
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In article
<4a6e80b6-238b-487c-8ce1-9ea24edf4349@m4g2000yqb.googlegroups.com>,
hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (hancock4) writes:
> So, what is it about today's Social Media that is so attractive
> compared to older forms? Is it just "user friendliness"? If so, I
> find that surprising since the text-based BBS and Usenet were always
> very easy to use with reasonable software. Indeed, some BBS' evolved
> to support Usenet access.
Yes, my first access to the Internet (and this very newsfroup) in 1989
was via a local BBS which had Internet access.
I think modern social media thrive because they have the right amount
of fluff to satisfy the masses.
--
/~\ cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid (Charlie Gibbs)
\ / I'm really at ac.dekanfrus if you read it the right way.
X Top-posted messages will probably be ignored. See RFC1855.
/ \ HTML will DEFINITELY be ignored. Join the ASCII ribbon campaign!
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| Re: BBS vs. Usenet vs. Facebook [message #25879 is a reply to message #25790] |
Thu, 22 November 2012 08:01 |
Morten Reistad
Messages: 2108
Registered: December 2011
Karma: 0
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In article <4a6e80b6-238b-487c-8ce1-9ea24edf4349@m4g2000yqb.googlegroups.com>,
<hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:
> Per a recent discussion on Internet origins...
>
> In earlier days dial up BBS were popular with PC users. At that time,
> many predicted they'd be all the rage, assuming a position that Social
> Media (eg Facebook, Twitter, Myspace etc) assume today. But in
> reality that only had a relatively small number of people.
>
> Then came Usenet, and again that was predicted to be all the rage but
> it wasn't.
>
> But today we have "Social Media" which _does_ seem to be all rage and
> extremely popular. It had mostly young folks at the start, but now
> many older people, too. It's used in troubled countries to
> communicate within and without. It also has a downside with
> discussions getting quite nasty and targeting children for ridicule
> among their peers.
I see nothng really different than scale. Facebook is really not
that different from a good 1985-ish BBS; except for nicer graphics
(enabled by faster lines, mostly) and the numbers of available users.
BBSes were about handling hundreds to thousands of users, usenet
about handling millions, facebook about billions.
> So, what is it about today's Social Media that is so attractive
> compared to older forms? Is it just "user friendliness"? If so, I
> find that surprising since the text-based BBS and Usenet were always
> very easy to use with reasonable software. Indeed, some BBS' evolved
> to support Usenet access.
The downside of these "social" media is that they are so proprietary.
If they weren't, we would have seen "meta-facebooks" all over the place
already.
-- mrr
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| Re: BBS vs. Usenet vs. Facebook [message #25897 is a reply to message #25879] |
Fri, 23 November 2012 00:10 |
Michael Black
Messages: 2799
Registered: February 2012
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On Thu, 22 Nov 2012, Morten Reistad wrote:
> The downside of these "social" media is that they are so proprietary.
> If they weren't, we would have seen "meta-facebooks" all over the place
> already.
>
That's an important difference from the old days. Back then, someone came
up with a protocol to add something useful. Whether it succeeded or not
depending on its value (and then later whether something came along to
supercede it). But the branded spaces are about being unique, bringing
people to your place so you can sell advertising. Email is still email
all these decades later, but myspace came and went, and I can see a time
when maybe everyone jumps from facebook to something else, since they are
products rather than protocol.
Michael
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| Re: BBS vs. Usenet vs. Facebook [message #25926 is a reply to message #25879] |
Fri, 23 November 2012 05:06 |
GreyMaus
Messages: 422
Registered: December 2011
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On 2012-11-22, Morten Reistad <first@last.name> wrote:
> In article <4a6e80b6-238b-487c-8ce1-9ea24edf4349@m4g2000yqb.googlegroups.com>,
> <hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:
>> Per a recent discussion on Internet origins...
>>
>
> I see nothng really different than scale. Facebook is really not
> that different from a good 1985-ish BBS; except for nicer graphics
> (enabled by faster lines, mostly) and the numbers of available users.
>
> BBSes were about handling hundreds to thousands of users, usenet
> about handling millions, facebook about billions.
>
>> So, what is it about today's Social Media that is so attractive
>> compared to older forms? Is it just "user friendliness"? If so, I
>> find that surprising since the text-based BBS and Usenet were always
>> very easy to use with reasonable software. Indeed, some BBS' evolved
>> to support Usenet access.
>
> The downside of these "social" media is that they are so proprietary.
> If they weren't, we would have seen "meta-facebooks" all over the place
> already.
>
> -- mrr
The BBSs were polite, at least the ones I used were, no gross insulting
as we see nowadays even in this group (Point was, you needed a bit of
`know-how' to even connect, so that weeded out the extreme idiots).
What I find offputting about the facebooks is that people are not carefull
enough about what they put online publicly, one young person I know uploads
lots of pictures of himself in the pub with friends and lots of empty glasses,
he is not really like that (at least I think he isin't)
"You might regret those pictures if you are applying for a job"
"I'm not, have a good one"
"They will be there, somewhere, in years to come."
Just been looking into Twitter recently, is it a really high number user relative
of IRC?
Young person "Whats IRC?"
--Oh, Gawd--
--
maus
.
.
....
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| Re: BBS vs. Usenet vs. Facebook [message #25927 is a reply to message #25897] |
Fri, 23 November 2012 05:06 |
GreyMaus
Messages: 422
Registered: December 2011
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On 2012-11-23, Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> wrote:
> On Thu, 22 Nov 2012, Morten Reistad wrote:
>
>
>> The downside of these "social" media is that they are so proprietary.
>> If they weren't, we would have seen "meta-facebooks" all over the place
>> already.
>>
> That's an important difference from the old days. Back then, someone came
> up with a protocol to add something useful. Whether it succeeded or not
> depending on its value (and then later whether something came along to
> supercede it). But the branded spaces are about being unique, bringing
> people to your place so you can sell advertising. Email is still email
> all these decades later, but myspace came and went, and I can see a time
> when maybe everyone jumps from facebook to something else, since they are
> products rather than protocol.
>
> Michael
>
Didnt Murdock/NewsInternational spend gazillions on BeBo only to
see it disappear into the murk?.
--
maus
.
.
....
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| Re: BBS vs. Usenet vs. Facebook [message #25949 is a reply to message #25926] |
Fri, 23 November 2012 09:58 |
Michael Black
Messages: 2799
Registered: February 2012
Karma: 0
|
Senior Member |
|
|
On Fri, 23 Nov 2012, greymausg@mail.com wrote:
> Just been looking into Twitter recently, is it a really high number user
> relative of IRC?
>
That's a point, the basic concept of both are similar.
One difference is that in the old days, we were by ourselves. It wasn't a
Shwab Drugstore, waiting to be noticed by old media. That time in 1997
when someone locally put up a page for Black History Month, he was doing
it for love, he was doing it because that's the internet he wanted. If
he hoped to get something out of it in the real world, then he'd have to
go the traditional route, knocking on doors, though poutting up a
webpage is one way to have a good reason to sit down and write about
something.
Or that time two years later when someone did good reviews of shows at our
Fringe Festival, good because he reviewed what interested him and had the
space to do it in more than a blurb. That was what I'd expect from the
internet.
But the internet was a place maybe to visit, old media treated it like a
foreign place. And if Usenet came up, it was often "it's kind of a neat
place, but a lot of spam and trolling" which tended to dismiss it.
Then later, old media is paying attention. Partly by the mass, but I
think simply because they are part of it too. They aren't just
spectators, they have joined it (if for no other reason than the entry
step is lower), and run along with the mass.
It becomes too much an adjunct to old media. If something "goes viral" I
hear about it on the evening news (I don't hear about it online, unless
someone is talking about an old media news report). People review things
all the time, but instead of "being some guy", they take the mantle of old
media, not reviewing until they have a magazine style webpage that invokes
the authority of old media. I love the idea of nobodies reviewing things
or saying something significant, I dislike the notion that the internet
isn't about that anymore, one has to play the old media game. So long as
those kids think they need to appear authoratative, then that sinks the
ability of "some guy" to be heard. After all, if you aren't part of a
newspaper, or some organization, then what you say can't count.
Michael
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| Re: BBS vs. Usenet vs. Facebook [message #25950 is a reply to message #25879] |
Fri, 23 November 2012 09:59 |
philo[1][2][3]
Messages: 4
Registered: November 2012
Karma: 0
|
Junior Member |
|
|
On 11/22/2012 07:01 AM, Morten Reistad wrote:
> In article <4a6e80b6-238b-487c-8ce1-9ea24edf4349@m4g2000yqb.googlegroups.com>,
> <hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:
>> Per a recent discussion on Internet origins...
>>
>> In earlier days dial up BBS were popular with PC users. At that time,
>> many predicted they'd be all the rage, assuming a position that Social
>> Media (eg Facebook, Twitter, Myspace etc) assume today. But in
>> reality that only had a relatively small number of people.
>>
>> Then came Usenet, and again that was predicted to be all the rage but
>> it wasn't.
>>
>> But today we have "Social Media" which _does_ seem to be all rage and
>> extremely popular. It had mostly young folks at the start, but now
>> many older people, too. It's used in troubled countries to
>> communicate within and without. It also has a downside with
>> discussions getting quite nasty and targeting children for ridicule
>> among their peers.
>
> I see nothng really different than scale. Facebook is really not
> that different from a good 1985-ish BBS; except for nicer graphics
> (enabled by faster lines, mostly) and the numbers of available users.
>
Actually there is a *huge* difference with Facebook (as compared to
Usenet or BBS)
Facebook has a great appeal to someone like me is a an "old timer".
I have re-united with many of my old friends I have not seen in 10, 20,
30+ years. All it takes is one friend I am still in contact with to have
stayed in touch with someone I haven't and sooner or later they'll "pop
up" as a suggestion.
Additionally I can easily do a search and quite often find someone I had
been looking for even if they were not "friended" by anyone in my group.
Plus I can keep up with friends and relatives who have moved to places
all over the world.
Only once did I run into an old friend on Usenet...
but on Facebook it happens all the time
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| Re: BBS vs. Usenet vs. Facebook [message #25959 is a reply to message #25950] |
Fri, 23 November 2012 10:59 |
Michael Black
Messages: 2799
Registered: February 2012
Karma: 0
|
Senior Member |
|
|
> On 11/22/2012 07:01 AM, Morten Reistad wrote:
>> In article=20
>> <4a6e80b6-238b-487c-8ce1-9ea24edf4349@m4g2000yqb.googlegroups.com>,
>> <hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:
>>> Per a recent discussion on Internet origins...
>>> =20
>>> In earlier days dial up BBS were popular with PC users. At that time,
>>> many predicted they'd be all the rage, assuming a position that Social
>>> Media (eg Facebook, Twitter, Myspace etc) assume today. But in
>>> reality that only had a relatively small number of people.
>>> =20
>>> Then came Usenet, and again that was predicted to be all the rage but
>>> it wasn't.
>>> =20
>>> But today we have "Social Media" which _does_ seem to be all rage and
>>> extremely popular. It had mostly young folks at the start, but now
>>> many older people, too. It's used in troubled countries to
>>> communicate within and without. It also has a downside with
>>> discussions getting quite nasty and targeting children for ridicule
>>> among their peers.
>> =20
>> I see nothng really different than scale. Facebook is really not
>> that different from a good 1985-ish BBS; except for nicer graphics
>> (enabled by faster lines, mostly) and the numbers of available users.
>> =20
>
> Actually there is a *huge* difference with Facebook (as compared to Usene=
t or=20
> BBS)
>
> Facebook has a great appeal to someone like me is a an "old timer".
>
> I have re-united with many of my old friends I have not seen in 10, 20, 3=
0+=20
> years. All it takes is one friend I am still in contact with to have stay=
ed=20
> in touch with someone I haven't and sooner or later they'll "pop up" as a=
=20
> suggestion.
>
> Additionally I can easily do a search and quite often find someone I had =
been=20
> looking for even if they were not "friended" by anyone in my group.
>
> Plus I can keep up with friends and relatives who have moved to places al=
l=20
> over the world.
>
>
> Only once did I run into an old friend on Usenet...
> but on Facebook it happens all the time
>
But that's not the magic of facebook. It's because people put up enough=20
information that you can find them. You couldn't find them in the old=20
days because they didn't yet have internet access, and likely if they did,=
=20
they didn't put enough infomration online so you knew that they were the=20
person you knew.
I have zero interest in hearing from people from high school. There is=20
one person, but it was easy to find her via a websearch, she's had some=20
level of success in the art world, she's a professoer somewhere, so she's=
=20
traceable. It likely helps that hse has a relatively uncommon last name.
There were people from when iw as about 19 that I wonder about, I can find=
=20
them. They too have had saome visibility so they are findable. Someone=20
wrote a long passage about someone I knew dying, and in pops a woman who=20
I knew at the time, sounding very much like she did when I first met her.
I can find my family tree online, and then as I suddenly realized, lots of=
=20
distant cousins. A unique enough name that means they are findable once=20
they are online.
If you put enough information about yourself online, then you are findable=
=20
without facebook. At least, if people weren't endowing facebook with=20
magic powers and only thinking of it as the way to find lost friends.
On the other hand, if they aren't looking, they won't find you.
Michael
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| Re: BBS vs. Usenet vs. Facebook [message #25960 is a reply to message #25959] |
Fri, 23 November 2012 11:07 |
Ahem A Rivet's Shot
Messages: 4946
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
|
Senior Member |
|
|
On Fri, 23 Nov 2012 10:59:31 -0500
Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> wrote:
> I can find my family tree online,
Really ? Where ? All I've ever found is sites that will allow me to
build it up if I pay them for access to records.
--
Steve O'Hara-Smith | Directable Mirror Arrays
C:>WIN | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins. | licences available see
You lose and Bill collects. | http://www.sohara.org/
|
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| Re: BBS vs. Usenet vs. Facebook [message #25961 is a reply to message #25959] |
Fri, 23 November 2012 11:11 |
philo[1][2]
Messages: 110
Registered: November 2012
Karma: 0
|
Senior Member |
|
|
On 11/23/12 9:59 AM, Michael Black wrote:
> On Fri, 23 Nov 2012, pX
>> Only once did I run into an old friend on Usenet...
>> but on Facebook it happens all the time
>>
> But that's not the magic of facebook. It's because people put up enough
> information that you can find them. You couldn't find them in the old
> days because they didn't yet have internet access, and likely if they
> did, they didn't put enough infomration online so you knew that they
> were the person you knew.
>
> I have zero interest in hearing from people from high school. There is
> one person, but it was easy to find her via a websearch, she's had some
> level of success in the art world, she's a professoer somewhere, so
> she's traceable. It likely helps that hse has a relatively uncommon last
> name.
I pretty much agree with you there...
I have pretty close to zero interest in reuniting with people I knew in
HS. but I have in more recent times met up with a couple of them.
One was a racists ass-hole who I should have left in the past...
but the other one...the High-school genius was worth getting to know
again. He knows how to write drivers!
However, that said...I am old enough that ...40 years ago was well past
my HS days!
>
> There were people from when iw as about 19 that I wonder about, I can
> find them. They too have had saome visibility so they are findable.
> Someone wrote a long passage about someone I knew dying, and in pops a
> woman who I knew at the time, sounding very much like she did when I
> first met her.
>
> I can find my family tree online, and then as I suddenly realized, lots
> of distant cousins. A unique enough name that means they are findable
> once they are online.
>
> If you put enough information about yourself online, then you are
> findable without facebook. At least, if people weren't endowing facebook
> with magic powers and only thinking of it as the way to find lost friends.
Yep...I did find people through other means than Facebook...
but I felt that *slightly* like stalking. Being contacted through
Facebook is more socially acceptable IMHO.
Anyway...as always...though Facebook is there,
you certainly do no have to use it
--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: news@netfront.net ---
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| Re: BBS vs. Usenet vs. Facebook [message #25964 is a reply to message #25959] |
Fri, 23 November 2012 11:25 |
Stephen Wolstenholme
Messages: 231
Registered: December 2011
Karma: 0
|
Senior Member |
|
|
On Fri, 23 Nov 2012 10:59:31 -0500, Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca>
wrote:
> If you put enough information about yourself online, then you are findable
> without facebook. At least, if people weren't endowing facebook with
> magic powers and only thinking of it as the way to find lost friends.
That is my experience too. I joined Facebook as soon as it became
available but I have not been "found" by anyone who I know. I tried
searching for people who I can remember and found a few. None of them
became friends.
Steve
--
EasyNN-plus. Neural Networks plus. http://www.easynn.com
SwingNN. Forecast with Neural Networks. http://www.swingnn.com
JustNN. Just Neural Networks. http://www.justnn.com
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| Re: BBS vs. Usenet vs. Facebook [message #25966 is a reply to message #25949] |
Fri, 23 November 2012 11:43 |
Peter Flass
Messages: 8529
Registered: December 2011
Karma: 0
|
Senior Member |
|
|
On 11/23/2012 9:58 AM, Michael Black wrote:
> On Fri, 23 Nov 2012, greymausg@mail.com wrote:
>
>
>> Just been looking into Twitter recently, is it a really high number
>> user relative of IRC?
>>
> That's a point, the basic concept of both are similar.
>
> One difference is that in the old days, we were by ourselves. It wasn't
> a Shwab Drugstore, waiting to be noticed by old media. That time in
> 1997 when someone locally put up a page for Black History Month, he was
> doing it for love, he was doing it because that's the internet he
> wanted. If he hoped to get something out of it in the real world, then
> he'd have to go the traditional route, knocking on doors, though
> poutting up a webpage is one way to have a good reason to sit down and
> write about something.
>
> Or that time two years later when someone did good reviews of shows at
> our Fringe Festival, good because he reviewed what interested him and
> had the space to do it in more than a blurb. That was what I'd expect
> from the internet.
>
> But the internet was a place maybe to visit, old media treated it like a
> foreign place. And if Usenet came up, it was often "it's kind of a neat
> place, but a lot of spam and trolling" which tended to dismiss it.
>
> Then later, old media is paying attention. Partly by the mass, but I
> think simply because they are part of it too. They aren't just
> spectators, they have joined it (if for no other reason than the entry
> step is lower), and run along with the mass.
>
> It becomes too much an adjunct to old media. If something "goes viral"
> I hear about it on the evening news (I don't hear about it online,
> unless someone is talking about an old media news report). People
> review things all the time, but instead of "being some guy", they take
> the mantle of old media, not reviewing until they have a magazine style
> webpage that invokes the authority of old media. I love the idea of
> nobodies reviewing things or saying something significant, I dislike the
> notion that the internet isn't about that anymore, one has to play the
> old media game. So long as those kids think they need to appear
> authoratative, then that sinks the ability of "some guy" to be heard.
> After all, if you aren't part of a newspaper, or some organization, then
> what you say can't count.
>
Very good points. I maintain a couple of sites "out of love" and don't
put advertising on them. I agree absolutely that "that's the internet I
want." One of the worst features of modern "civilization" is that
everything gets turned into a scheme for making money - look at what's
happening to Thanksgiving, for example. There isn't a single piece of
electronic cr@p that's worth the hassle, IME.
--
Pete
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| Re: BBS vs. Usenet vs. Facebook [message #25968 is a reply to message #25960] |
Fri, 23 November 2012 12:01 |
Peter Flass
Messages: 8529
Registered: December 2011
Karma: 0
|
Senior Member |
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|
On 11/23/2012 11:07 AM, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
> On Fri, 23 Nov 2012 10:59:31 -0500
> Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> wrote:
>
>> I can find my family tree online,
>
> Really ? Where ? All I've ever found is sites that will allow me to
> build it up if I pay them for access to records.
>
There's quite a bit that's free.
Immigrant Ships Transcriber's Guild http://www.immigrantships.net/
has lots of passenger lists.
The Internet Archive has scanned a lot of stuff from the Allen County
Public Library, which has one of the best genealogy collections outside
of Utah. They're also scanning various US censuses (I've forgotten
where in the world you are)
USGenWeb is a tree and the leaf nodes have a lot of information about
specific localities.
FamilySearch.org is free.
If you're looking for a "tree" Rootsweb and other sites have some family
trees that others have done that may help you with yours available for
free, but you really need to do the work yourself.
The internet is a wonderful thing for genealogists. People used to have
to travel all over the country (or the world) to look up original
records, but now there's lots of stuff available right at your computer.
--
Pete
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| Re: BBS vs. Usenet vs. Facebook [message #25971 is a reply to message #25966] |
Fri, 23 November 2012 12:31 |
Ahem A Rivet's Shot
Messages: 4946
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
|
Senior Member |
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On Fri, 23 Nov 2012 11:43:40 -0500
Peter Flass <Peter_Flass@Yahoo.com> wrote:
> Very good points. I maintain a couple of sites "out of love" and don't
> put advertising on them. I agree absolutely that "that's the internet I
> want."
One thing I like is that it has become steadily easier and cheaper
to maintain a small site, so much so that doing out of love is no problem.
That being said, I have to agree with the sentiment that the web
has become an "attention economy" not an "information economy". Large
commercial web siten companies spend a lot of time and effort on what they
call "user engagement" - the metric is how much time users spend on the
site in each session, since this directly translates to how much time they
spend seeing the adverts that pay for the site.
I don't like it much, but then I consider that while the internet
is dominated by the big commercial sites desperately working at finding
ways to support sites that deliver several thousdand pages per second, the
cracks they leave for the rest of us to play in are bigger, faster and more
populous than the internet was when I was first attracted to it.
--
Steve O'Hara-Smith | Directable Mirror Arrays
C:>WIN | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins. | licences available see
You lose and Bill collects. | http://www.sohara.org/
|
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| Re: BBS vs. Usenet vs. Facebook [message #25972 is a reply to message #25926] |
Fri, 23 November 2012 12:47 |
Rod Speed
Messages: 3507
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
|
Senior Member |
|
|
<greymausg@mail.com> wrote in message
news:slrnkaugf8.25v.greymausg@gmaus.org...
> On 2012-11-22, Morten Reistad <first@last.name> wrote:
>> In article
>> <4a6e80b6-238b-487c-8ce1-9ea24edf4349@m4g2000yqb.googlegroups.com>,
>> <hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:
>>> Per a recent discussion on Internet origins...
>>>
>>
>> I see nothng really different than scale. Facebook is really not
>> that different from a good 1985-ish BBS; except for nicer graphics
>> (enabled by faster lines, mostly) and the numbers of available users.
>>
>> BBSes were about handling hundreds to thousands of users, usenet
>> about handling millions, facebook about billions.
>>
>>> So, what is it about today's Social Media that is so attractive
>>> compared to older forms? Is it just "user friendliness"? If so, I
>>> find that surprising since the text-based BBS and Usenet were always
>>> very easy to use with reasonable software. Indeed, some BBS' evolved
>>> to support Usenet access.
>>
>> The downside of these "social" media is that they are so proprietary.
>> If they weren't, we would have seen "meta-facebooks" all over the place
>> already.
> The BBSs were polite,
Hah.
> at least the ones I used were, no gross insulting
> as we see nowadays even in this group
Even sillier.
> (Point was, you needed a bit of `know-how' to even
> connect, so that weeded out the extreme idiots).
I was one myself. You're face down in the mud, as always.
> What I find offputting about the facebooks is that people are not carefull
> enough about what they put online publicly, one young person I know
> uploads lots of pictures of himself in the pub with friends and lots of
> empty glasses, he is not really like that (at least I think he isin't)
> "You might regret those pictures if you are applying for a job"
> "I'm not, have a good one"
> "They will be there, somewhere, in years to come."
> Just been looking into Twitter recently, is
> it a really high number user relative of IRC?
Yep, leaves it for dead volume wise.
> Young person "Whats IRC?"
> --Oh, Gawd--
The ancient greeks used to sit around in their togas
or whatever they wore and rave on the same way...
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| Re: BBS vs. Usenet vs. Facebook [message #25981 is a reply to message #25959] |
Fri, 23 November 2012 13:26 |
Rod Speed
Messages: 3507
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
|
Senior Member |
|
|
"Michael Black" <et472@ncf.ca> wrote in message
news:alpine.LNX.2.02.1211231053140.25245@darkstar.example.org...
> On Fri, 23 Nov 2012, philo wrote:
>
>> On 11/22/2012 07:01 AM, Morten Reistad wrote:
>>> In article
>>> <4a6e80b6-238b-487c-8ce1-9ea24edf4349@m4g2000yqb.googlegroups.com>,
>>> <hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:
>>>> Per a recent discussion on Internet origins...
>>>>
>>>> In earlier days dial up BBS were popular with PC users. At that time,
>>>> many predicted they'd be all the rage, assuming a position that Social
>>>> Media (eg Facebook, Twitter, Myspace etc) assume today. But in
>>>> reality that only had a relatively small number of people.
>>>>
>>>> Then came Usenet, and again that was predicted to be all the rage but
>>>> it wasn't.
>>>>
>>>> But today we have "Social Media" which _does_ seem to be all rage and
>>>> extremely popular. It had mostly young folks at the start, but now
>>>> many older people, too. It's used in troubled countries to
>>>> communicate within and without. It also has a downside with
>>>> discussions getting quite nasty and targeting children for ridicule
>>>> among their peers.
>>>
>>> I see nothng really different than scale. Facebook is really not
>>> that different from a good 1985-ish BBS; except for nicer graphics
>>> (enabled by faster lines, mostly) and the numbers of available users.
>>>
>>
>> Actually there is a *huge* difference with Facebook (as compared to
>> Usenet or
>> BBS)
>>
>> Facebook has a great appeal to someone like me is a an "old timer".
>>
>> I have re-united with many of my old friends I have not seen in 10, 20,
>> 30+
>> years. All it takes is one friend I am still in contact with to have
>> stayed
>> in touch with someone I haven't and sooner or later they'll "pop up" as a
>> suggestion.
>>
>> Additionally I can easily do a search and quite often find someone I had
>> been
>> looking for even if they were not "friended" by anyone in my group.
>>
>> Plus I can keep up with friends and relatives who have moved to places
>> all
>> over the world.
>>
>>
>> Only once did I run into an old friend on Usenet...
>> but on Facebook it happens all the time
>>
> But that's not the magic of facebook. It's because people put up enough
> information that you can find them. You couldn't find them in the old
> days because they didn't yet have internet access, and likely if they did,
> they didn't put enough infomration online so you knew that they were the
> person you knew.
>
> I have zero interest in hearing from people from high school. There is
> one person, but it was easy to find her via a websearch, she's had some
> level of success in the art world, she's a professoer somewhere, so she's
> traceable. It likely helps that hse has a relatively uncommon last name.
>
> There were people from when iw as about 19 that I wonder about, I can find
> them. They too have had saome visibility so they are findable. Someone
> wrote a long passage about someone I knew dying, and in pops a woman who
> I knew at the time, sounding very much like she did when I first met her.
>
> I can find my family tree online, and then as I suddenly realized, lots of
> distant cousins. A unique enough name that means they are findable once
> they are online.
>
> If you put enough information about yourself online, then you are findable
> without facebook. At least, if people weren't endowing facebook with
> magic powers and only thinking of it as the way to find lost friends.
>
> On the other hand, if they aren't looking, they won't find you.
And that last is where facebook is very different.
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| Re: BBS vs. Usenet vs. Facebook [message #25983 is a reply to message #25966] |
Fri, 23 November 2012 13:36 |
Rod Speed
Messages: 3507
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
|
Senior Member |
|
|
"Peter Flass" <Peter_Flass@Yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:k8o8nd$dpn$1@dont-email.me...
> On 11/23/2012 9:58 AM, Michael Black wrote:
>> On Fri, 23 Nov 2012, greymausg@mail.com wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Just been looking into Twitter recently, is it a really high number
>>> user relative of IRC?
>>>
>> That's a point, the basic concept of both are similar.
>>
>> One difference is that in the old days, we were by ourselves. It wasn't
>> a Shwab Drugstore, waiting to be noticed by old media. That time in
>> 1997 when someone locally put up a page for Black History Month, he was
>> doing it for love, he was doing it because that's the internet he
>> wanted. If he hoped to get something out of it in the real world, then
>> he'd have to go the traditional route, knocking on doors, though
>> poutting up a webpage is one way to have a good reason to sit down and
>> write about something.
>>
>> Or that time two years later when someone did good reviews of shows at
>> our Fringe Festival, good because he reviewed what interested him and
>> had the space to do it in more than a blurb. That was what I'd expect
>> from the internet.
>>
>> But the internet was a place maybe to visit, old media treated it like a
>> foreign place. And if Usenet came up, it was often "it's kind of a neat
>> place, but a lot of spam and trolling" which tended to dismiss it.
>>
>> Then later, old media is paying attention. Partly by the mass, but I
>> think simply because they are part of it too. They aren't just
>> spectators, they have joined it (if for no other reason than the entry
>> step is lower), and run along with the mass.
>>
>> It becomes too much an adjunct to old media. If something "goes viral"
>> I hear about it on the evening news (I don't hear about it online,
>> unless someone is talking about an old media news report). People
>> review things all the time, but instead of "being some guy", they take
>> the mantle of old media, not reviewing until they have a magazine style
>> webpage that invokes the authority of old media. I love the idea of
>> nobodies reviewing things or saying something significant, I dislike the
>> notion that the internet isn't about that anymore, one has to play the
>> old media game. So long as those kids think they need to appear
>> authoratative, then that sinks the ability of "some guy" to be heard.
>> After all, if you aren't part of a newspaper, or some organization, then
>> what you say can't count.
>>
>
>
> Very good points. I maintain a couple of sites "out of love" and don't
> put advertising on them. I agree absolutely that "that's the internet I
> want." One of the worst features of modern "civilization" is that
> everything gets turned into a scheme for making money
Everything doesn't, even in the US.
> - look at what's happening to Thanksgiving, for example. There isn't a
> single piece of electronic cr@p that's worth the hassle, IME.
Yet you must be using something to post here.
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| Re: BBS vs. Usenet vs. Facebook [message #25984 is a reply to message #25960] |
Fri, 23 November 2012 13:42 |
Michael Black
Messages: 2799
Registered: February 2012
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On Fri, 23 Nov 2012, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
> On Fri, 23 Nov 2012 10:59:31 -0500
> Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> wrote:
>
>> I can find my family tree online,
>
> Really ? Where ? All I've ever found is sites that will allow me to
> build it up if I pay them for access to records.
>
I did leave out a bit.
Years ago, someone on my mother's side did a family tree, so I knew
someone sort of famous was up there even if I never actually looked at
that family tree. And so I put their names in, and one
result was some distant relative's webpage where he had traced the family
tree I was interested in.
But having found that, I did a search with their names and "great, great,
great grandmother" and found a page from some cousin I knew nothing about
who shares the same set of ancestors. (Odder still, the person also has
an amateur radio license, like I do.) Theoretically I may hear from some
distant relative because I've mentioned those ancestors on my webpage.
I actually thought my great, great, great grandfather had given his wife
her name (he certainly gave her "Sara" as her first name), like he put
names on various things in the pacific northwest. But a couple of months
ago, I decided to just put that last name in, and wham, a bunch of people
with the same last name, right in the place where I'd expect them to be
(and yes, apparently quite a few of my distant cousins have facebook
pages, which actually do appear with regular searches).
And then I hit some of those commercial ancestor pages. One was really
weird, since it was a generic template that really wasn't filled out. So
"Timentwa", the origins isn't known, and apparently it's useage isn't
specific to a limited location. Actually, the name is very specific to
the Pacific Northwest, many connected wtih the Colville reservation in
Washington.
It was a much easier process since I knew the name of my great, great,
great grandparents. But it comes as a shock to see how many different
things I can find about them on the web. Without even looking, them and
their first generation have 3 wikipedia pages and there are some others
that will mention their names. On the other hand, perhaps that helped
when my mother's cousin did the family tree thirty years ago.
My name is extremely generic, so nobody could find me with just my name.
But if they know anything about me, they likely could find me with a
websearch.
Michael
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| Re: BBS vs. Usenet vs. Facebook [message #26003 is a reply to message #25984] |
Fri, 23 November 2012 13:47 |
Anne & Lynn Wheel
Messages: 3196
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> writes:
> And then I hit some of those commercial ancestor pages. One was
> really weird, since it was a generic template that really wasn't
> filled out. So "Timentwa", the origins isn't known, and apparently
> it's useage isn't specific to a limited location. Actually, the name
> is very specific to the Pacific Northwest, many connected wtih the
> Colville reservation in Washington.
i went to high school with kids that had that name ... just double
checked with high school annuals.
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
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| Re: BBS vs. Usenet vs. Facebook [message #26005 is a reply to message #25791] |
Fri, 23 November 2012 16:59 |
Jorgen Grahn
Messages: 606
Registered: March 2012
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On Wed, 2012-11-21, Andy Burns wrote:
> hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
>
>> In earlier days dial up BBS were popular with PC users.
>> Then came Usenet
>> But today we have "Social Media"
>> So, what is it about today's Social Media that is so attractive
>> compared to older forms?
>
> Dunno, I used various BBSs, still use USENET and never bother with
> social media
The funny thing is, this *is* a social medium in every sense of the
word. It's just not run as a dictature, or advertisement-financed.
And here I was going to refer to Wikipedia, but it just spouts
nonsense, such as this intro:
Social media employ web- and mobile-based technologies to support
interactive dialogue and "introduce substantial and pervasive
changes to communication between organizations, communities, and
individuals." Social media are social software which mediate human
communication. When the technologies are in place, social media is
ubiquitously accessible, and enabled by scalable communication
techniques.
/Jorgen
--
// Jorgen Grahn <grahn@ Oo o. . .
\X/ snipabacken.se> O o .
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| Re: BBS vs. Usenet vs. Facebook [message #26006 is a reply to message #25897] |
Fri, 23 November 2012 17:24 |
Jorgen Grahn
Messages: 606
Registered: March 2012
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On Fri, 2012-11-23, Michael Black wrote:
> On Thu, 22 Nov 2012, Morten Reistad wrote:
>
>
>> The downside of these "social" media is that they are so proprietary.
>> If they weren't, we would have seen "meta-facebooks" all over the place
>> already.
>>
> That's an important difference from the old days. Back then, someone came
> up with a protocol to add something useful. Whether it succeeded or not
> depending on its value (and then later whether something came along to
> supercede it). But the branded spaces are about being unique, bringing
> people to your place so you can sell advertising.
> Email is still email all these decades later,
Well, kind of. I don't trust it much these days because people keep
abandoning their mailboxes, or applying overzealous spam filters, or
being shy about handing out their addresses. For almost all my
Facebook "friends", I don't have a current mail address[1].
When I'm in a bad mood, it's as if all my relatives and acquaintances
are standing there and saying:
"Ok, we know that back in 1992 or so you wanted to build a better
world for everyone using the Internet and open standards, so we
could all be free together. But freedom is overrayted. We'd rather
live in China because we like the stability. We don't really mind
being screwed over by mega-corporations."
/Jorgen
[1] Facebook, of course, don't really encourage its user to hand out
their email adress and/or OpenPGP key because that could
potentially lead traffic away from the site. They use mail to nag
you about visiting the site if you stay way for more than a day
though!
--
// Jorgen Grahn <grahn@ Oo o. . .
\X/ snipabacken.se> O o .
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| Re: BBS vs. Usenet vs. Facebook [message #26023 is a reply to message #25868] |
Fri, 23 November 2012 17:42 |
Jorgen Grahn
Messages: 606
Registered: March 2012
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On Thu, 2012-11-22, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> In article
> <4a6e80b6-238b-487c-8ce1-9ea24edf4349@m4g2000yqb.googlegroups.com>,
> hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (hancock4) writes:
>
>> So, what is it about today's Social Media that is so attractive
>> compared to older forms? Is it just "user friendliness"? If so, I
>> find that surprising since the text-based BBS and Usenet were always
>> very easy to use with reasonable software. Indeed, some BBS' evolved
>> to support Usenet access.
>
> Yes, my first access to the Internet (and this very newsfroup) in 1989
> was via a local BBS which had Internet access.
>
> I think modern social media thrive because they have the right amount
> of fluff to satisfy the masses.
In the case of Facebook, it's not just fluff. Usenet focuses on topics;
Facebook focuses on friends (and friends of friends). It turns out
people are more interested in talking to friends about anything, than
in talking with anyone about a certain topic.
This group has some of that feeling. Local groups have had it in the
past too[1]. But most groups have a few people you like and trust, a
few more who clearly have some mental disorder and a lot of free time,
and an everchanging crowd of strangers dropping by to ask random
questions based on flawed assumptions.
If someone had invented an open Facebook protocol in 1989, we would
have won already.
/Jorgen
[1] Like algonet.general, Algonet being my ISP for a number of years.
If Calle or Jenny-with-the-Axe is reading this, hi!
--
// Jorgen Grahn <grahn@ Oo o. . .
\X/ snipabacken.se> O o .
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| Re: BBS vs. Usenet vs. Facebook [message #26024 is a reply to message #25968] |
Fri, 23 November 2012 17:43 |
Charles Richmond
Messages: 2754
Registered: December 2011
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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"Peter Flass" <Peter_Flass@Yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:k8o9og$kcp$1@dont-email.me...
>
> [snip...] [snip...]
> [snip...]
>
> The internet is a wonderful thing for genealogists. People used to have
> to travel all over the country (or the world) to look up original records,
> but now there's lots of stuff available right at your computer.
>
Politicians in the US used to refer to the internet as the "Information
Superhighway".
"Most roads go from here to there, but with the Information Superhighway...
there is *no* there, only here."
--
numerist at aquaporin4 dot com
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| Re: BBS vs. Usenet vs. Facebook [message #26025 is a reply to message #26005] |
Fri, 23 November 2012 18:55 |
Peter Flass
Messages: 8529
Registered: December 2011
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On 11/23/2012 4:59 PM, Jorgen Grahn wrote:
> On Wed, 2012-11-21, Andy Burns wrote:
>> hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
>>
>>> In earlier days dial up BBS were popular with PC users.
>>> Then came Usenet
>>> But today we have "Social Media"
>>> So, what is it about today's Social Media that is so attractive
>>> compared to older forms?
>>
>> Dunno, I used various BBSs, still use USENET and never bother with
>> social media
>
> The funny thing is, this *is* a social medium in every sense of the
> word. It's just not run as a dictature, or advertisement-financed.
>
> And here I was going to refer to Wikipedia, but it just spouts
> nonsense, such as this intro:
>
> Social media employ web- and mobile-based technologies to support
> interactive dialogue and "introduce substantial and pervasive
> changes to communication between organizations, communities, and
> individuals." Social media are social software which mediate human
> communication. When the technologies are in place, social media is
> ubiquitously accessible, and enabled by scalable communication
> techniques.
>
If you don't like it - rewrite it. There's a lot of good information on
Wikipedia, and also quite a bit of nonsense. I've been spending some
time lately trying to increase the former and decrease the latter.
--
Pete
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| Re: BBS vs. Usenet vs. Facebook [message #26026 is a reply to message #26023] |
Fri, 23 November 2012 18:57 |
Peter Flass
Messages: 8529
Registered: December 2011
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On 11/23/2012 5:42 PM, Jorgen Grahn wrote:
> On Thu, 2012-11-22, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>> In article
>> <4a6e80b6-238b-487c-8ce1-9ea24edf4349@m4g2000yqb.googlegroups.com>,
>> hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (hancock4) writes:
>>
>>> So, what is it about today's Social Media that is so attractive
>>> compared to older forms? Is it just "user friendliness"? If so, I
>>> find that surprising since the text-based BBS and Usenet were always
>>> very easy to use with reasonable software. Indeed, some BBS' evolved
>>> to support Usenet access.
>>
>> Yes, my first access to the Internet (and this very newsfroup) in 1989
>> was via a local BBS which had Internet access.
>>
>> I think modern social media thrive because they have the right amount
>> of fluff to satisfy the masses.
>
> In the case of Facebook, it's not just fluff. Usenet focuses on topics;
> Facebook focuses on friends (and friends of friends). It turns out
> people are more interested in talking to friends about anything, than
> in talking with anyone about a certain topic.
>
> This group has some of that feeling.
Sort of like eSCIDS, or maybe eDECUS.
--
Pete
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| Re: BBS vs. Usenet vs. Facebook [message #26041 is a reply to message #25822] |
Sat, 24 November 2012 06:20 |
D.J.
Messages: 821
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On Thu, 22 Nov 2012 08:04:09 -0500, Peter Flass
<Peter_Flass@Yahoo.com> wrote:
> On 11/22/2012 3:18 AM, Mike Spencer wrote:
>>
>> Now the refugees have moved to a moderated, invitation-only Yahoo
>> Group. Yahoo, as Michael Black observes, "belongs to someone...[a]
>> corporation". You have do do it as a web forum or as a mailing list.
>> You have to register with Yahoo. I was invited to join, gave it a
>> whirl in the mailing list format with an otherwise unused email
>> address. Not for me. All the stuff that Michael Black likes about
>> Usenet is lost and I have to be enfeoffed to Yahoo.
>>
>
> The thing I like about Yahoo is the registration process. The groups
> are not moderated (I'm not sure it's an option) but can be moderated
> retroactively if needed. I administrate a couple of groups. I'm happy
> to let anyone join, maybe with an admonitory note if the registrant
> sounds like a headhunter, etc. But if someone starts spamming I can
> toss them and can their spam. If this NG were like that I can envision
> a couple of posters getting the boot.
There are plenty of non-thinking posters to wikipedia. So you may not
get much done as they rewrite the facts you type in.
..
JimP.
--
Brushing aside the thorns so I can see the stars.
http://www.linuxgazette.net/ Linux Gazette
http://www.drivein-jim.net/ Drive-In movie theaters
http://story.drivein-jim.net/ A story Feb, 2011
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| Re: BBS vs. Usenet vs. Facebook [message #26042 is a reply to message #25971] |
Sat, 24 November 2012 06:23 |
D.J.
Messages: 821
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On Fri, 23 Nov 2012 17:31:18 +0000, Ahem A Rivet's Shot
<steveo@eircom.net> wrote:
> On Fri, 23 Nov 2012 11:43:40 -0500
> Peter Flass <Peter_Flass@Yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> Very good points. I maintain a couple of sites "out of love" and don't
>> put advertising on them. I agree absolutely that "that's the internet I
>> want."
>
> One thing I like is that it has become steadily easier and cheaper
> to maintain a small site, so much so that doing out of love is no problem.
>
> That being said, I have to agree with the sentiment that the web
> has become an "attention economy" not an "information economy". Large
> commercial web siten companies spend a lot of time and effort on what they
> call "user engagement" - the metric is how much time users spend on the
> site in each session, since this directly translates to how much time they
> spend seeing the adverts that pay for the site.
>
> I don't like it much, but then I consider that while the internet
> is dominated by the big commercial sites desperately working at finding
> ways to support sites that deliver several thousdand pages per second, the
> cracks they leave for the rest of us to play in are bigger, faster and more
> populous than the internet was when I was first attracted to it.
A web site cannot dominate if nobody looks at it. Web sites aren't
like windows beside the sidewalk. If no one ever goes to the big
commercial sites, then they get no attention.
Several eyars ago as a resut of a web search I saw a web site with
graphic spinners on it... stupid. They cannot attract attention to a
web site until someone goes to the web site to look at it. Makes the
web site makers look stupid.
..
JimP.
--
Brushing aside the thorns so I can see the stars.
http://www.linuxgazette.net/ Linux Gazette
http://www.drivein-jim.net/ Drive-In movie theaters
http://story.drivein-jim.net/ A story Feb, 2011
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| Re: BBS vs. Usenet vs. Facebook [message #26044 is a reply to message #26042] |
Sat, 24 November 2012 08:19 |
Ahem A Rivet's Shot
Messages: 4946
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On Sat, 24 Nov 2012 05:23:30 -0600
JimP. <pongbill127@cableone.net> wrote:
> A web site cannot dominate if nobody looks at it. Web sites aren't
> like windows beside the sidewalk. If no one ever goes to the big
> commercial sites, then they get no attention.
However a lot of people do go to the big commercial sites, that's
how they get to be big. They then spend a lot of the money they make
working out how to get more people to their sites and how to get higher
rates for their advertising space.
> Several eyars ago as a resut of a web search I saw a web site with
> graphic spinners on it... stupid. They cannot attract attention to a
> web site until someone goes to the web site to look at it. Makes the
> web site makers look stupid.
Those (and the infamous BLINK tag) did tend to make the site look
stupid, but the aim is not (or shouldn't be) to attract visitors to the
site, but rather to catch the attention of those that do find it and
persuade them that it's worthwhile looking further on the site or failing
that to come back again. For a while it was thought by some (quite a lot)
that the way to do this was to make the site spectacular and impressive -
of course doing that requires talent and attempting it without produces
results best described as tacky.
--
Steve O'Hara-Smith | Directable Mirror Arrays
C:>WIN | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins. | licences available see
You lose and Bill collects. | http://www.sohara.org/
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| Re: BBS vs. Usenet vs. Facebook [message #26066 is a reply to message #26063] |
Sat, 24 November 2012 11:30 |
Michael Black
Messages: 2799
Registered: February 2012
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On Sat, 24 Nov 2012, Walter Bushell wrote:
> In article <iak1o9-0j9.ln1@wair.reistad.name>,
> Morten Reistad <first@last.name> wrote:
>
>> BBSes were about handling hundreds to thousands of users
>
> I though BBSen were for systems with less than 5 modems or
> simultaneous users.
>
Generally yes. Probably most amateur ones had 2 phone lines at best.
Of course, he spoke of users, not modems. After some point, you had to
register to even look over a BBS, so I'm sure that drove the user count
up, people looking once, then never returning. I know I did that. There
was also a lot more casual callers than hardcore regulars, so that would
help increase user numgers yet not put a drain on the system. I don't
thik "thousands" quite applies, but certainly hundreds could under these
circumstances.
But there was a level of commercial BBS that sat between those
and mainframe type systems like Compuserve. They did have lots of modems
and charged for access, but were run on I thought on "IBM PC" type
computers. "Canada Remote Systems" was one in the Toronto area, I just
read about it, there were similar systems in the US, you'd see the ads in
"Boardwatch" magazine.
Of course, "The Well" was a BBS, and charged and ran on a minicomputer.
Michael
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| Re: BBS vs. Usenet vs. Facebook [message #26073 is a reply to message #25809] |
Fri, 23 November 2012 20:51 |
Bill Marcum
Messages: 57
Registered: July 2012
Karma: 0
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Member |
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On 11/22/2012 12:31 AM, Michael Black wrote:
> It was about a year later that CoEvolution Quarterly (or was it the
> WHolle Earth Review by then?) started up The Well. So in 86 or 87 the
> magazine ran an article about Usenet, which maybe was the first
> "mainstream" article about it (in quotes because it was hardly a
> mainstream magazine, but it wasn't a technical or computer magazine).
>
The name "Well" stood for "Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link".
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| Re: BBS vs. Usenet vs. Facebook [message #26077 is a reply to message #26073] |
Sat, 24 November 2012 12:51 |
Michael Black
Messages: 2799
Registered: February 2012
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On Fri, 23 Nov 2012, Bill Marcum wrote:
> On 11/22/2012 12:31 AM, Michael Black wrote:
>> It was about a year later that CoEvolution Quarterly (or was it the
>> WHolle Earth Review by then?) started up The Well. So in 86 or 87 the
>> magazine ran an article about Usenet, which maybe was the first
>> "mainstream" article about it (in quotes because it was hardly a
>> mainstream magazine, but it wasn't a technical or computer magazine).
>>
> The name "Well" stood for "Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link".
>
I knew that, just didn't think about it. CoEvolution QUarterly launched
their Whole Earth Software Catalog, which like the original Whole Earth
Catalog, was supposed to be a book with supplements between editions of
the book. It didn't last long (only three issues of the Whole Earth
Software Review apaprently, so I have 2 out of the 3), and so they folded
it back into CoEvolution QUarterly and renamed the whole thing Whole Earth
Review.
I wasn't sure exactly when that happened, but yes, it must have been
before the launch of The Well.
Michael
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| Re: BBS vs. Usenet vs. Facebook [message #26091 is a reply to message #26042] |
Sat, 24 November 2012 15:11 |
Charles Richmond
Messages: 2754
Registered: December 2011
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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"JimP." <pongbill127@cableone.net> wrote in message
news:jcb1b8tls05bg4kt2jh7agfk711i9ql9nf@4ax.com...
>
> [snip...] [snip...]
> [snip...]
>
> A web site cannot dominate if nobody looks at it. Web sites aren't
> like windows beside the sidewalk. If no one ever goes to the big
> commercial sites, then they get no attention.
>
I get web space from a provider... just to play around with. It's handy for
many things. I get a place to park a domain name, with a set of distinct
email addresses. I can add as many email addresses as I want. I can put up
sites using PHP and MySQL. Just things that interest *me*.
I was amazed to see that I get web traffic from all over the place. Who
would be interested in this junk??? I have a few old computer articles from
magazines posted to the site, but *nothing* of real value. Yet I seem to
get visited from Europe, Australia, and even from Russia. I'd just as soon
those folks left my sites alone...
Another handy thing... if I have a graphic I want to discuss on <a.f.c.>, I
can post it on my web site. Then I put the URL in my <a.f.c.> post... and
everyone (except BAH, who does *not* "webit") can see what I am posting
about.
--
numerist at aquaporin4 dot com
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