subject: Usenet Newsgroups History and Growth [print this page] Usenet Newsgroups History and Growth Usenet Newsgroups History and Growth
The History of Usenet
Usenet started in the late 1970s in North Carolina. It was created by two Duke students who wanted to try to hook two computers together using UNIX. Another student at the University of North Carolina wrote the first newsreader in 1980. In 1981, a student at Berkeley wrote another version of the Usenet software. This version of Usenet software was updated through 1986. Most of the changes were for a new naming structure for the newsgroups, enhanced ihave/sendme control messages, and other features.
As the net was growing, the back end of Usenet had to be upgraded as well and in 1986 NNTP (Network News Transfer Protocol) was created. This helped the exchange of articles between Usenet providers. NNTP was the first back-end software used by Usenet providers. Later, an alternative was made called INN, or Internet News. INN is not just a front end, but an entire news system in its own right. It contains an entire news relay daemon that can maintain many NNTP connections, and is usually the news server software of choice for many Usenet providers.
What is Usenet Today?
Usenet connects tens of thousands of sites around the world, from mainframes to PCs. With more than 120,000 newsgroups available and hundreds of thousands of readers, it is perhaps the world's largest computer network. The Usenet network connects millions of users from around the world and brings them all together to exchange files and engage in discussions easily.Fastusenet.org continues the legacy of the Usenet network today. We continually update our equipment so our users' experience with Usenet can remain superb at all times. We bring the Usenet network home to you and make it super easy to use, even for the most inexperienced beginners.
Usenet Growth
Usenet continues to grow day by day. Today's Usenet feed is about 9 terabytes. Leading Usenet provider such as Fastusenet.org provide almost 1,000 days of Usenet retention. If you crunch the numbers in order to provide 1,000 days of Usenet retention you must have 9,000 terabytes of storage. If you interested in joining one of the leading Usenet providers head over to Fastusenet.org.
