[12213] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Internet Company Commercial Market Newsgroups -- FAQ
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Rob Raisch, The Internet Company)
Mon May 9 21:12:48 1994
Date: Mon, 9 May 1994 14:00:35 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Rob Raisch, The Internet Company" <raisch@internet.com>
To: Brad Templeton <brad@looking.clarinet.com>
Cc: psi.com@looking.clarinet.com, com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: <9405082120.aa19577@looking.clarinet.com>
> I'm not in support of either. I want to read information sorted
> first by topic, and secondly by type. (ie. first I want to know if
> it's about computers, then I want to know if it's an ad or a comment.)
>
> The right place for ads on the net is in the appropriate groups, with
> the development of a tag system to mark them for later selection.
Then I suppose Usenet Policy Based Routing will be as widespread and as
simple to implement as Policy Based IP Routing. <Marked for the sarcasm
impaired.>
Seriously though, I would strongly suggest that this is hardly a
workable solution. The responsibility for determining the content of a
message lies in the hands of its author -- until such time that we have
true AIs categorizing data.
> That I would want to read nothing but ads of all sorts is silly. I do
> want to see ads related to my topics of interest.
Hmmm, perhaps you should tell this to the local 'shopper' papers that
seem so prevailant these days. Or to the info-mercial people.
> My opposition comes from the fact that because of the quick de facto
> standardization of USENET, the market groups will make the proper
> answer far harder to implement. They'll cause people to say, use
> the 'market' groups, or to think that people who do it the right way
> are doing it so as to avoid paying TIC some money.
So far, I have not seen a 'proper' answer suggested.
Let's think about this for a moment...
I mark this posting
Keywords: USENET info newspaper standardization
Content: Non-commercial
Now, without human moderation, suggest ways in which you can prove that
this is an advertisement.
I think there is a real problem here and there are no workable solutions
because the determination of commercial vs. non-commercial can only be
based on a human abstraction.
The real problem is getting people to change their behavior.
> If ads are subsidizing something, like my newspaper, I will read them
> scattershot, or at least tolerate them. If they are not, I want only
> to see the ads that matter to me.
Please read the FAQ, Brad. I think you will see that this project will
indeed (we hope) be subsidizing something important as well as providing
recognizable topic areas. The idea really is to create special interest
marketing spaces. If I have an interest in services provided over the
global Internet, market.internet.services might be an appropriate place
to look.
Or if I have a strong interest in health and fitness,
market.health.products might contain product information of particular
interest to me.
As to the de-facto standardization process of Usenet, well... even in a
world of properly marked and keyworded adverts, I think there will be a
need for a moderated, high quality service. I could be wrong.
-- </rr> Rob Raisch, The Internet Company -- from the Online Show, NYC
