blog vs. newsgroup
| Commentsso i consider myself a geek...let's get that out in the open (which explains the reason for the random thought that will follow).
i was reading the blog of scott watermasysk and came across this post regarding CommentRSS. it was prompted from him reading a post about comments on blogs and how it becomes increasingly difficult to “keep up” with the conversation:
“One items (among many others) that came up is it is sometimes hard to keep up with secondary discussions (ie, comments) via blogs. Agreed. One thing .Text and a couple other blog tools now support is CommentRSS.” [scottwater.com/blog]
another interesting point that rob made:
"Personally, I think the blog phenomena is awesome. Collecting information from it is difficult though. It means you have to read everything everyday - I can tell you right now that's pretty challenging. Just trying to follow some of the recent discussions on my blog has been challenging to say the least! For example, to follow this discussion I have to visit your blog along with any other person's blog that wants to discuss it - it's easy to miss stuff. "
after reading that, i started thinking...why “blog”? i thought of another technology that has been around a while and already serves a similar purpose (and solves the above problem)...you might have heard of it: newsgroups (aka nntp protocol stuff). i started thinking about outlook express and how i keep up with the international tech community and involved in microsoft newsgroups...this is what i discovered:
| feature | blogs | newsgroups | winner? |
| post via web | X | X | no clear winner, both use http and standard web browser |
| post via client app | X | X | maybe blogs have the edge because they implement the post via http, helping those bhing firewalls, versus nntp |
| topic based discussions | X | X | no clear winner, this is the goal of each |
| anonymous posting | X | X | no clear winner |
| secured posting | X | X | maybe newsgroups due to usual implementation of network credentials versus application-based security |
| threaded discussions | X (kinda) | X | for me, newsgroups win...that is their intention; blogs try to implement this with comments, but the end user may have to go back to the blog site to read the comment...and usually the author of the post receives the comment in email, then has to launch their blog client/web to respond back on their blog |
| client apps to read the information | X | X | blog clients are usually rss aggregators which may or may not support some features, so if you want a client that reads the post and all responses, the newsgroups win here...again, that is their goal. |
| leverage post information | X | X (in theory) | i'm referring to aggregation here...in theory an app could be written to consume newsgroup information (and has), but blogs have a winner here with rss standardization |
| galleries/categories | X | X (kinda) | blogs clearly have the edge here, but i could argue that newsgroups have categories...you subscribe to the one you want on the news server...think of the "blog" as the news server and the categories as each newsgroup...but it is clear that newsgroups don't support galleries |
| searching/archiving | X (in the client) | X | if the aggregator client supports it, then it will; but newsgroups have this support natively...if you can point be to a weblog software (not the client, but the weblog like .text) that enables searching, then i'll shut up) |
so what's my point? it's that “blogs” have been around forever...in a different format and have usually been preserved for corporate use...
“yeah, but you have to have a news server to host nntp groups”: true, but you have to have a web server to host a blog
“yeah, but a web server is easy and i can get a blog from a service that provides them”: a newsgroup server is easy as well, and maybe there's an open market out there? a newsgroup server for “weblogsnewsserver.com”? and you can signup for your own newsgroup just like you sign up now for your own blogspace.
“what about aggregation...i want to read all in one place”: i agree...outlook express and other newsreaders do this for you...maybe they could support an rss integration consumer?
“firewalls man, firewalls”: totally agree...this is the kicker...why are it admins so scared of nntp anyway? with proper management it shouldn't be an issue moreso than http...lock it down and have security policies and all is well.
anyhow, just some thoughts...the post on pascal's site made me think...is the wheel being re-invented?
Please enjoy some of these other recent posts...
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