Today Usenet suffers from some problems whcih can be easily solved. MyNews might be a part of this solution. Here are some arguments:
The enormous amount of data flowing through the Usenet today makes it more and more impossible for all newsadmins to offer adequate services. The time when free data exchange for the newsgroups (peering) was normal are over. Today the small providers have to pay for their newsfeed. So they cut down costs for bandwidth (and disk-storage) by reducing the amount of offered newsgroups. And the offered newsgroups are often not complete, because the redundancy (which is necessary for completeness) is also cut down.
The problem can be solved at the user's side by using multiple news-servers.Some popular news-readers already offer this feature, but they usually use different accounts and dont add the different feeds to one big source. This results in a lack of overview. MyNews offers the ability to use multiple servers and adds all these information together to all popular newsreaders. It simulates one complete news-server for the users. So they can use their favorite tools - just on a better newsserver (their own one).
A lot of providers do no longer offer all newsgroups. Some groups are discarded due to their volume, some due to 'political correctness' or legal trouble, some simply to censorship.
Again this problem can be solved by using multiple servers at the user's side. Another option might be that in the future it is no longer necessary that all servers carry all groups. Special servers could offer special hierarchy of newsgroups. The user can subscribe not only to newsgroups, (s)he can subscribe to servers. A motivation for such 'special' public servers could be the abilty to offer own hierarchies.
Today it is very difficult to create new newsgroups. The admins have become very restrictive. The main reason is that all this traffic has to flow through the existing channels. A second reason is that managing ten million newsgroups is an impossible task.
A system of distributed news-servers which carry no longer an identical set of groups allows as much groups and hierarchies as users demand for them. Companies might be able and willing to 'sponsor' newsgroups and add own, private and public groups for support, commerce, information and newsletters.
Today small communities have to use mailing lists or web-based message boards for communication. Newsgroups are only accepted for a lerger audience, because it makes no sense to transport millions of messages around the world for just a few users.
The possibility to create own groups in any quantity might be a good motivation for new users to use the 'newsgroups' conception. Newsgroups offer a far better usability than mailing-lists, because they are automatically stored on multiple servers, archiving is easy and access can be done 'on demand'. The combination of mail and news is a great feature for workgroups. Privacy can still be guaranteed by access restriction to such communities. Newsgroups are still better that every kind of 'webboard'. Automatic transfer of messages, offline reading capability (Internet is still expensive in most parts of the world), quick survey by header-lists, easy integration into mail and specialized tools for reading larger quantities of messages without hundreds of 'clicks' and dozens of different user-interfaces makes special newsgroups an interesting alternative to the webbased boards.
Today the information flows through the 'main-channels'. In the future information can flow between the users computers directly. This reduces the load of the 'Usenet-backbone', gives a better redundancy and reduces the chances for censorship and political influence. Acess restriction and encryption can be an additional step to free communication between individuals. The 'free and secret communication' and the 'freedom of speech' are the basics of all democracy and mentioned in all constitutions. Such direct flow of information will give the people back their rights -and will stop the abuse of civil rights.
Today the messages in newsgroups are expired (deleted) after some days, sometimes after some weeks. Just a few (incomplete) archives are available - in web-based form. This is caused by the capacity restrictions of the involved servers. If the net is splitted up, then the interested parties can keep messages as long as they want. They dont disappear "automatically". This can be a curse - but it is also a chance. While it is good that a lot of messages disappear after some time it might be helpful that a lot of questions can be answered forever. The most evil thing is avoided: If you dont participate in a newsgroup today for two weeks or months - because you are not 'online' to various reasons, then you miss a lot. From now on you can stay away as long as you want: You will not miss anything. You will still get it!
Today you have to crawl through a lot of websites before you find the information you are looking for. 'Announcements' are difficult to find. And the web-based spiders and meta-crawlers offer tons of unwanted links for each query. It is time to create a new system of sorted information channels - with equal rights for large and small companies: Announcement groups can be formed which inform about news in every form. An example might be an announcement group for new TV-sets, or for new tourist opportunities in Mongolia, or for new cultural events in Naples, Florida, or for new convertibles, or for new kinds of nutrition.
The traditional newspapers might change: They can offer their content in own groups - even with access limitation, but with easy and existing transport mechanisms - and all existing tools - tools for reading news! Such information could be broadcasted on digital (or analog) radio, TV or satellite channels (a great chance for the 'third worls countires'). It is not necessary to re-invet the wheel: The newsgroups and the newsreaders has been designed for exactly this purpose: Reading news, discussing with authors. The traditional 'one way communication' can be changed to a bidirectional communication - easy and with existing tools.
Today the newsgroups are used as a cheap advertisement medium - they are abused! One reason is, that there are no good groups for commercial information. We are all covered with a huge flow of marketing ads - just because the advertisers believe that one or two percent will answer to their spam. If they began to focus on their real job: Offering good products to those who are interested, then we have a real improvement: If a newsgroup about bikes has related groups about advertisements for bikes, shopping for bikes, special offers for bikes, tests and additional information - then the users who want to purchase a bike can easily subscribe to these forums, get the necessary informations (even in form of links to the web) and then have benefits from the advertisement. Those who have just purchased a new bike - or dont want to purchase one - are no longer bombarded with unwanted information! And this might be a real benefit for the companies: They can reach their audience easily, inexpensively and highly efficent! Today short information is distributed to millions of uninterested people. And the ten thousand who really want it, dont get it! And we can be sure that everybody who wants to buy a bike would love to have fair information about new bikes exactly at this time.
Today a lot of newsgroups has become unusable because some people have a lot of fun in bringing them down. Flames are sent, off topic discussion are repeated again and again. A tool for easy selection of wanted and unwanted content is necessary. And 'ratings' could be easily implemented into new kinds of communication. Imagine that you visit a group and one member is raked "a troll" by hundreds of others. You can easily use an automatic filter for such a guy - and you will not see him again. This would NOT be censorship. Because it would be jsut "ratings" - a form of "recommendation". Whenever you switch off such ratings, then you get the "rare content" of the group. So the 'no censorship' is still valid. But it is supported by a strong weapon against those who abuse this right. Some newsgroups might form a kind of "leadership" which manages the groups: Keeping lists of acceptable content, 'good' subscribers, 'trolls and unwanted persons', rules- FAQs - charters. All this is already done today. Why not use - and extend - it ?
Juergen Helbing