Usenet was originally designed around the UUCP network, with most article transfers taking place over direct computer-to-computer telephone links. Readers and posters would log into the same computers that hosted the servers, reading the articles directly from the local disk.
As local area networks and the Internet became more commonly used, it became desirable to allow newsreaders to be run on personal computers, and a means of employing the Internet to handle article transfers was desired. Because networked Internet-compatible filesystems were not yet widely available, it was decided to develop a new protocol that resembled SMTP, but was tailored for reading newsgroups.
Startup Job Site Gets Backing From Y Combinator, Relauches As Startuply Michael Arrington Sun, 20 Jul 2008 07:19:40 -0000 New Y Combinator startup Startuply launches today. It’s a free job listing service aimed squarely at small startups, which have a lot of trouble getting the attention of new engineering graduates over the noise of the brand recognition and recruiting efforts of larger companies like Google and Microsoft.
Startuply is actually a fresh relaunch of Jowba, [...] Tesla Motors Unveils Jaw-Dropping Menlo Park Showroom Jason Kincaid Sun, 20 Jul 2008 03:42:44 -0000
Tesla Motors, the automobile startup with backers that include Sergey Brin and Larry Page, held a party tonight to mark the launch of its Menlo Park storefront. The store, which is the company’s second, will be open to the general public beginning this Tuesday.
Despite Tesla Motors’ well deserved reputation as a high-end car manufacturer, [...] Finalist In McDonalds/MySpace Jingle Contest Is Former McDonalds Armed Robber Michael Arrington Sun, 20 Jul 2008 00:17:28 -0000 Well, here’s something that’s so ridiculous it couldn’t be made up. McDonald’s teamed up with MySpace to create a new jingle for the 40th anniversary of the Big Mac. The original song (two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce…) was created back in 1974. Over 1,000 user created songs and videos were submitted - the [...] Pressflip Is A Belly Flop Michael Arrington Sat, 19 Jul 2008 20:36:16 -0000 Pressflip is a new blog search engine (it’s actually a relaunch of a site called Persai, which launched earlier this year). The idea is you do a search, train the engine by telling it which results aren’t interesting to you, and then wait for new results to come in over time.
The search results aren’t [...] Edopter Attempts “Social Trendcasting” Through Crowdsourcing And Internet Buzz Calley Nye Sat, 19 Jul 2008 19:47:41 -0000
Edopter is a unique concept that attempts to combine crowd-sourcing with internet buzz to predict new trends. It’s called “social trendcasting.”
The way it works, is by allowing users to generate “trends” according to what they think will catch on. Some trends are “cewebrities” (pictured below), “Batman: The Dark Knight,” and “tap water.” [...] VC Deals In Charts (Q2 2008)—Exits? We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Exits? Erick Schonfeld Sat, 19 Jul 2008 12:22:31 -0000
Second quarter data is out on venture deals from the National Venture Capital Association and PriceWaterhouseCoopers. Despite the IPO market drying up completely, the What-Me-Worry crowd on Sand Hill Road keep pumping money into venture deals at a steady pace. Venture capitalists invested $7.4 billion last quarter in 990 deals, compared to $7.5 [...]