Google Groups Google has acquired Deja.com's Usenet Archive. Entries date back to the early days of Usenet. groups.google.com/ - 26k - May 4, 2006

oh. that's what google groups is. gosh I guess I thought ggl groups were just their own thing ~ google boards. so it's an archive. of Usenet.

Google Groups
Enables users to search and browse the Usenet archives which consist of over 700 million messages, and post new comments. groups.google.com/ - 26k - May 4, 2006

not current boards (can't add, or can you?) -- About Google Groups -- ok yes you can. so: initially the archive, then: new version = Google Groups Beta.

What's new in this version of Google Groups?
The new Google Groups builds on the success of the original. You can search and read more than 1 billion postings in the Usenet archive, and now you can also stay in touch with friends, family and colleagues by creating your own groups, mailing lists, and email newsletters.

Every group has a home page hosted by Google where members can start new discussions or reply to older topics. Every group also has its own email address to help its members stay in touch with each other.
Members can read and search all public Google Groups content, including more than 1 billion postings from the Usenet bulletin board service, dating back to 1981. oh- still running:

Google Groups currently archives only widely propagated Usenet newsgroups available to our upstream news service streams. We cannot add newsgroups that are available on only one specific news server unless the newsgroup is propagated to the world-wide Usenet. Note: Google maintains an archive of postings submitted to Usenet, but we do not create the newsgroups that appear there. That is done through a process described in detail at http://web.presby.edu/~nnqadmin/nnq/ncreate.html. Once your newsgroup has been officially created and approved by the Usenet community, you can request that it be added to the archive in Google Groups.

What is a Usenet Newsgroup?
Usenet refers to the distributed online bulletin board system begun in 1979 (begun) at Duke University. Usenet users can post messages in newsgroups [news?groups] that can be read or contributed to by anyone with access to the Internet and special newsreader software. Over the years, the number of newsgroups has grown to the thousands, hosted all over the world and covering every conceivable topic.
Google Groups contains the world's most comprehensive archive of postings to Usenet, dating back to 1981. Google Groups eliminates the need for newsreading software and lets you search this archive in the same way you would search HTML pages on the Internet. You can also use Google Groups to post your own comments to an existing Usenet newsgroup.

20 Year Archive on Google Groups
Highlighted links of historically significant Usenet posts from Google Groups archive.www.google.com/googlegroups/archive_announce_20.html
We compiled some especially memorable articles and threads in the timeline below. For example, read Tim Berners-Lee's announcement of what became the World Wide Web or Linus Torvalds' post about his "pet project".
You can find more in-depth information about the archive here. >> From: Google Employee - Date: Fri, Dec 21 2001 8:28 pm - As many of you might know: Google Groups has recently extended its index to offer coverage of 20 years of Usenet.
We have received several inquiries about: - The comprehensiveness of our new 20 year archive - More information about the individual archives we merged together - Various statistics about the new 20 year archive. The remainder of this post should help satisfy your curiosity.