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"I should briefly mention Google buying the Deja News archive, promising to revitalise Usenet, and then promptly abandoning it. Cheers Google. Choogle." Oh wow

"I should briefly mention Google buying the Deja News archive, promising to revitalise Usenet, and then promptly abandoning it. Cheers Google. Choogle." Oh wow, I totally forgot about that. I remember it being a really big deal at the time, and now I barely even remember.

senko 3y ago
It's even worse than that. Here, Google pulled one from the Microsoft playbook: embrace, extend, extinguish. Google bought DejaNews, rebranded it into Google Groups (embrace) and then proceed to Googlify it, making it less and less Usenet-y and more and more Google specific (extend), until only the Google-specific mailing lists remained (extinguish). Edit: see https://web.archive.org/web/20010226023947/http://groups.google.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20010226023947/http://groups.goo...
- thrashh 3y ago
  Umm according to Wikipedia, Deja News was turning into a shopping site, going bankrupt and shutting down the Usenet archive. So Google came in and saved it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Groups#Deja_News https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Groups#Deja_News
  - jghn 3y ago
    Yeah. At the time I remember the sentiment being more "woah, this is amazing" and less "boo, corporate overlords taking over".
    - anigbrowl 3y ago
      Yeah, and then they let it sink as they have with so many other cool things they built.
      - bentcorner 3y ago
        It certainly smacks of being someone's promo project where they moved on to other things after the migration and the project fizzled out without leadership.
    - senko 3y ago
      Google was pretty much considered the "good guys" back then. It only started with AdWords a year earlier and was barely breaking even at the time. Loong way from "corporate overlords".
- jhallenworld 3y ago
  It's even worse than that... USENET was one of the places that Google used to seed its search engine. Links from USENET were high quality links. It's like reddit as the source for LLMs today. So Google neglecting USENET could be about preventing competitors.
tiffanyh 3y ago
Didn't Deja become the basis for Google Groups, which still remains today.
- Falkon1313 3y ago
  Oh wow, that still exists! What a sparse and abysmal end. I wonder if they even know it's still there? Probably doesn't use enough bandwidth for anyone to notice. Probably just a few people taking a trip down memory lane to re-read things posted 10-20 years ago.
joshuaissac 3y ago
> Cheers Google. Choogle. This appears to be inspired by the BBC show 'Look Around You'. https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Look_Around_You https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Look_Around_You

senko 3y ago

It's even worse than that. Here, Google pulled one from the Microsoft playbook: embrace, extend, extinguish. Google bought DejaNews, rebranded it into Google Groups (embrace) and then proceed to Googlify it, making it less and less Usenet-y and more and more Google specific (extend), until only the Google-specific mailing lists remained (extinguish). Edit: see https://web.archive.org/web/20010226023947/http://groups.google.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20010226023947/http://groups.goo...

thrashh 3y ago
Umm according to Wikipedia, Deja News was turning into a shopping site, going bankrupt and shutting down the Usenet archive. So Google came in and saved it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Groups#Deja_News https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Groups#Deja_News
- jghn 3y ago
  Yeah. At the time I remember the sentiment being more "woah, this is amazing" and less "boo, corporate overlords taking over".
  - anigbrowl 3y ago
    Yeah, and then they let it sink as they have with so many other cool things they built.
    - bentcorner 3y ago
      It certainly smacks of being someone's promo project where they moved on to other things after the migration and the project fizzled out without leadership.
  - senko 3y ago
    Google was pretty much considered the "good guys" back then. It only started with AdWords a year earlier and was barely breaking even at the time. Loong way from "corporate overlords".
jhallenworld 3y ago
It's even worse than that... USENET was one of the places that Google used to seed its search engine. Links from USENET were high quality links. It's like reddit as the source for LLMs today. So Google neglecting USENET could be about preventing competitors.

tiffanyh 3y ago

Didn't Deja become the basis for Google Groups, which still remains today.

Falkon1313 3y ago
Oh wow, that still exists! What a sparse and abysmal end. I wonder if they even know it's still there? Probably doesn't use enough bandwidth for anyone to notice. Probably just a few people taking a trip down memory lane to re-read things posted 10-20 years ago.

joshuaissac 3y ago

> Cheers Google. Choogle. This appears to be inspired by the BBC show 'Look Around You'. https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Look_Around_You https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Look_Around_You