Conference Calls

Bulletin Boards
 

Bulletin boards are very similar to e-mail with respect to the sending of messages from the client. However, instead of the messages going straight to the recipient, they are stored on a central server, to which users have the same access. In other words, it's a many-write, read-once medium. Users post messages to a single account that all can read.

USENET (NNTP), is an Internet standard for bulletin boards and discussion groups, developed in 1979, is a many-to-many (many-write, many-read) medium. It collects message boards into an hierarchy of subjects. For instance alt.sports is in the alt hierarchy for alternative and sci.math is in the sci hierarchy for science. Currently, Web message boards, mailing lists, and weblogs have overtaken USENET in use and importance. However, the open nature and small overhead keep its usage around. It should also be noted that USENET is one of the first peer-to-peer applications.

The classic bulletin boards is the bulletin board system or BBS for short, which have evolved into the Internet forum of today. The BBS were popular in the 1980s and ran over the public telephone network. Internet forums, on the other hand, are a web application that provides for online discussions.