What is the difference between Usenet and social media?
There must be some link between Usenet and social media. Even in the Wikipedia article on [Social media], the Usenet is mentioned in the "Early computing" paragraph. There aren't direct connections between them, but for common sense, they must have something in common. Social media for sure could be one of the causes of a decrease in Usenet popularity.
Wikipedia's definition of social media noted key concepts like: so-called "web 2.0" applications; with user-generated content; with users profiles; with ability to create social networks. For "web 2.0" applications: tagging; dynamic content; mass participation (from "people who tended to be hackers and computer hobbyists to a wider variety of users").
So the main distinction here is a package. Because the Usenet isn't an application or service (there are many such applications, called clients). But people on the Usenet generate content and have some sort of profiles. Their profiles (internet avatars) of course are limited to their e-mails footers, and information provided that way; or simply by sending address. There is always the ability to create social contacts on the Usenet. In every group people, after a while, people are knowing each other. Sometimes it's involving contacts besides the Internet.
But the Usenet doesn't fit "web 2.0" guidelines. Many groups have rather strict rules for posting (which involve client settings, the technical side of posts like encodings or substantive content connected with group topic). The Usenet is more serious. So it couldn't be mass participated.
Usenet is also well categorized. There isn't a need for tagging, because its content isn't ad-hoc, and it should be planned (for eg. I will post my article about fishing to the fisher's group, nor teacher's group, and so on.
The above could lead us to a thesis that social media are less serious. I don't know why "serious" people were moved to them and left the Usenet rather empty. They abandoned the established order in favor of content in quite random or short form.
The next thing which I am thinking about is the purpose of publishing. It isn't mentioned in Wikipedia's definition. But it seems that publishing on social media is self-centered. So it is my profile, and I can put on it what I want to do. If you "like" it, you could join my profile. The Usenet seems to be more conversation-centered. So if I post an article to the Usenet, I am planning to discuss it with others. And with that expectation, my article must be more complex and more thoughtful. If they wouldn't be other users could even blame the author for it.
So we could fall in love with "web 2.0" abilities from the technical side, and that could lead to left more complex opinions in the flavor of ad-hoc flying thoughts. It could be at the beginning also motivated by the technical side of "web 2.0" applications, where short content fits better their limited functionality. After some time we are stuck with that stopgap, because - if something works then why overpay?
However, not all is lost. I was surprised by [Statistics about a group] on the aioe.org news server. There are still many active groups! There is also [Big-8 Management Board] which start working. The `comp.infosystems.gemini` group was created, and the `comp.software.shareware.announce` was removed. Now the Usenet needs active users only.
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szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sun 24 Apr 2022 10:49:06 AM CEST
tags: #usenet, #socialmedia
/gemlog/