Newsgroup

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What Does Newsgroup Mean?

A newsgroup is an Internet-based discussion around an individual, entity, organization or topic. Newsgroups enable remotely connected users to share, discuss and learn about their topic of interest by exchanging text messages, images, videos and other forms of digital content.

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Newsgroups are also referred to as usenet newsgroups.

Techopedia Explains Newsgroup

Newsgroups were initially created in 1979 by some university students to exchange messages. Users can subscribe for free by submitting an email address, and the group generally consists of several topics/categories based around a main theme. The user/subscriber can post a message in a particular topic/category, which is either automatically visible in open newsgroups, or can only be viewed by approved members in moderated groups. All subscribers participating or following a particular topic/newsgroup will be notified of new messages and updates. Moreover, news/stories/topics in the newsgroup can be read through a downloadable news reader application.

Despite new technologies such as social media, newsgroups continue to thrive online.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology expert

Margaret is an award-winning writer and educator known for her ability to explain complex technical topics to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles in the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret’s idea of ​​a fun day is to help IT and business professionals to learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.