Understanding How Newsgroups

Newsgroups are discussion forums (or electronic bulletin boards) where
individuals post messages for others to read and answer. New newsgroups
appear — and old, unused newsgroups disappear — almost daily.

The advantage of these groups is that the opinions of authors are disparate
and come from around the world. There are between 20,000 and 50,000 publicly
accessible newsgroups. Some of these newsgroups are filled with spam
(junk mail), and others are inactive shells. Newsgroups range from serious to
silly and support almost all religious ideologies, political points of view, and
philosophical beliefs. If you want to know what investors think about a particular
investment, a newsgroup is a good place to look for the answer.
Newsgroup participants aren’t necessarily investment professionals, but
many of them are savvy investors.

Knowing how newsgroups are named can help you determine whether a
certain newsgroup may interest you. Newsgroup names typically have two or
more parts. The first section of a newsgroup’s name is the most general
grouping or topic. Here are some examples of different first names that may
be of interest to online investors:

Section ........................ Description

Alt .......................... Alternative subjects, ranging from the serious

............................... (investing and finance) to the weird (occult and

............................... alternative lifestyles)
Biz ......................... Business subjects, including commercials

Misc ....................... Miscellaneous topics, from items for sale to finance

Newsgroups can have names with two sections. For example the first section
can be alt, and the second section can be invest. The name of the newsgroup
then would be alt.invest. Some newsgroups do not have any subgroups,
but others have 20 or more subgroups under the major topic. One example
of a major topic is alt.invest.real-estate, which branches into other
newsgroups, such as alt.invest.real-estate.methods. That is, each
component of the name represents a different level in the newsgroup. The last
named component is the actual theme of the group. For example, alt.invest.
real-estate is about investing in real estate.

Subscribing to a newsgroup is easy. With most browsers, you simply click the
name of the newsgroup you want to subscribe to. For details, use your Web
browser to check out Beginners Central at Northern Webs (www.northern
webs.com/bc/index.html). Discover how to navigate your browser’s newsreader,
select a newsgroup, and post to newsgroups.

Finding the perfect newsgroup

The Internet provides various sources for finding Usenet newsgroups.

Here are a few examples:

Harley Hahn (www.harley.com/usenet) provides Harley Hahn’s Master
List of Usenet Newsgroups. The master list includes a short description
of each newsgroup, placed in a category and organized in an easy-to-use
search list.
Yahoo! Groups (groups.yahoo.com) offers nearly 3,000 investment
groups and more than 600 online investing mailing lists. In this population,
60 subgroups focus on e*Trade. Registration is free. You can even
start your own Yahoo! group.

Robot Wisdom Newsgroup Finder (www.robotwisdom.com/finder/
index.html) enables you to search by historical period, numbers of
articles, and country or state locations. This site uses clickable maps of
the United States and the world. Responses include the newsgroup
name, address, description, charter, and sometimes Frequently Asked
Questions (FAQs) if available.

Tired of the same old newsgroups? Discover all the Web’s new newgroups by
going to Newsville at www.newsville.com/news/newnews.html.

Finally, some investor news reading

One of the easiest ways to find newsgroups is to go to Google (www.google.
com). Click Groups, then click Browse all of Usenet. At the next Web page
shown in Figure 1-1, to select your topic enter your keyword in the Directory
Search or scroll through the Usenet names. Regardless of which approach
you select, you’ll discover a listing of newsgroups that may be of interest to
you. Each group includes the group’s name, a description of the group, the
group’s category, and other characteristics. These characteristics can
include information about the number of group members, whether the group
is open to the public, restricted, moderated, and so on.

The best feature of this site is that you can post your questions directly to
the newsgroup without a great deal of fuss. You can also search newsgroup
articles for keywords. For example, assume that you’re thinking about investing
in Microsoft. As part of your research, you can see what newsgroup members
had to say about the company, and when they said it.

Another great feature is that you can research the author of the newsgroup
article. Google shows how many articles the author has posted and which
newsgroup that author is posting to. This data can indicate which newsgroups
regularly carry the type of information you’re seeking.

Getting the Message from
Investor Message Boards

With investor message boards, you can read what other online investors are
saying about an investment that may interest you. Overall, these message
boards include many honest, knowledgeable investors, with only a few
unscrupulous fraudsters with questionable intentions. Therefore, you must
determine what is sound advice and what is trash. Make certain that you
complete your own research before acting on any message board information.
The following are a few of the top-rated investor message boards online:

Silicon Investor (www.siliconinvestor.com/stocktalk) has several
levels of membership. Basic membership is free with your registration.
The free, limited level allows you to post between one and two messages
per day. You can’t turn off ads and can’t make use of advanced features
such as Next 10 and Search. Paying subscribers have unlimited posting
privileges, the ability to turn off ads, and access to Next 10, Search, and
Advanced Search features. Subscriptions are $19.95 per month, $29.95
per $29.95, and $49.95 for six months. Annual subscriptions are $89.95,
and a lifetime subscription is $199.95.

The Motley Fool (boards.fool.com) is free with your registration. Here
you find company discussions sorted by name, industry, and market
analysis, as well as an investors’ roundtable for discussing strategies.
Before you post, don’t forget to read the “Fool Community Guidelines” at
www.fool.com/help/?display=community04.
Raging Bull (www.ragingbull.com), now owned by Lycos, has more
than 15,000 active message boards. Participants earn a “power rating”
that indicates how much credibility a member has earned with the community.
Features include lists of the most active message boards and
message boards with the greatest number of posts.

Uncovering Investor Information
from Mailing Lists

Mailing lists are e-mail groups that are started by organizations or individuals
who purchase mailing list programs. Then they advertise to others who may
be interested in joining a topic-specific discussion group. The advertisement
usually provides precise instructions for subscribing to the mailing list.

You subscribe to a particular mailing list by sending an e-mail message to the
list’s moderator. In return, you receive an e-mail message confirming your
enrollment. This message typically includes the address you use for posting
messages to the mailing list, the rules of the discussion group, and instructions
for removing your name — that is, unsubscribing — from the mailing list.

Mailing list participants exchange e-mail about issues in their subject areas. If
someone starts a thread, or topic, that you want to comment on, you post
your comments to the list, using the instructions you received when you
subscribed.

To answer questions or make comments, subscribers send an e-mail message
to the mailing list address (which differs from the mailing list program’s
address), and everyone gets a copy of the message. Unlike newsgroups, most
lists are moderated so that inappropriate messages aren’t sent to the group.

Today more than 300,000 mailing lists exist. You may find a mailing list while
surfing the Net, but they tend to be private. The best source for finding an
investor-related mailing list is Tile.net (www.tile.net). Tile.net has more
than 66,000 public mailing lists and is growing. Don’t despair; the site is
searchable and provides information that describes each mailing list and how

(Sometimes knowing how many subscribers will receive your investment
question is a good idea.)

Don’t lose that information about how to unsubscribe! Mailing list members
receive an average of 30 messages per day. If you just signed up for four mailing
lists, you may have more than a hundred messages tomorrow.
to subscribe (and, more importantly, how to unsubscribe if it doesn’t meet
your requirements). Another good mailing list directory is CataList (www.
lsoft.com/lists/listref.html), which includes more than 66,000 mailing
lists. It’s searchable by site, country, and number of list subscribers.