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From: reid@Glacier.ARPA (Brian Reid)
Newsgroups: net.news
Subject: how ubiquitous is Usenet?
Message-ID: <2217@Glacier.ARPA>
Date: Tue, 8-Jan-85 11:17:34 EST
Article-I.D.: Glacier.2217
Posted: Tue Jan  8 11:17:34 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 11-Jan-85 22:48:04 EST
Distribution: net
Organization: Stanford University, Computer Systems Lab
Lines: 20

Last night I was the after-dinner speaker to a group of 100 people at a
local (Silicon Valley) church; my assigned topic was something along the
lines of how computers are going to change life. I forget exactly what they
wanted me to talk about. What I did talk about was computer mail, bboards,
netnews, plans for stargate, etc.

At the beginning of the talk I wanted to know who my audience was, so I
asked a few questions. Question 1 was "how many of you work in the computer
industry?"  About 80 raised their hands. Question 2 was "how many of you
have a home computer?" About 90 raised their hands. Question 3 was "how many
of you know what Usenet is?" One person raised his hand.

Somehow we collectively nurture this fantasy that Usenet is ubiquitous and
universal, yet in this reasonably random sample of computer professionals,
only 1% had even HEARD of it.

Something to think about.
-- 
	Brian Reid	decwrl!glacier!reid
	Stanford	reid@SU-Glacier.ARPA