| Lesson 7 | Communication services |
| Objective | Describe the Services for communicating within Groups and in real time Online |
User Network (USENET)
All news traveling over the Internet is called Netnews (or Network News) and can be read using a Web browser or a newsreader such as nn, rn, trn, or tin.
Understandably, many businesses block or limit access to USENET.
User Network (USENET) is a public access network that was developed as a bulletin board by two U.S. universities. Referred to as USENET,
the organization is responsible for the registration, collection, and distribution of newsgroups around the world.
A newsgroup, is a bulletin board hosted by USENET. All visitor postings to any of the 36,000 currently registered newsgroups are send to
USENET servers where they are broadcast to thousands of ISPs around the world. When visiting a newsgroup, the user is actually receiving its contents from their ISP, not USENET.
A discussion group looks and functions exactly like a newsgroup, the only real difference is a discussion group is hosted privately
(it is not registered with USENET). The host can be any Web site, and modern Web editors, such as FrontPage, make the creation of a discussion group
quite simple to develop.
List Server (LISTSERV)
LISTSERV is an automated message list server organized by subject. It allows Internet users to subscribe to (and to unsubscribe from) mailing lists by email. Colleges and other organizations often use the lists to post group mail.
Internet Relay Chat (IRC)
IRC (Internet Relay Chat) is used to connect multiple computers in Internet chat sessions.
People convene in a public area called a channel, or chat room, where they can communicate in real time by typing messages back and forth.
To use IRC, you need an Internet connection and IRC client software.
One of many sites that list IRC software (including free applications) as well as a channel guide is
http://sg.pacnet.com/
You can search the Web for IRC software, as well as for lists of chat sites and their focuses.
Also useful are sites listing the emoticons, symbols composed of punctuation marks and letters used to convey emotions and acronyms commonly
used as chat room shorthand to save time and keystrokes.
In the next lesson, you will learn about other technologies that enable you to access data on the Web.
Communication Services
