Usenet News is a widely distributed discussion system, consisting of a set of 'newsgroups' with names that are classified hierarchically by subject. Articles or messages which are posted to these newsgroups are then broadcast to other interconnected computer systems. CoWebs are collaborative, private websites which are used by groups of people to share information (mainly within the fields of education and research).

A unique overview of interfaces to social information spaces, which covers novel approaches such as social navigation

Inhalt
I Introduction to Online Studies and Usenet.- 1 Studying Social Information Spaces.- 2 A Standing Wave in the Web of Our Communications: Usenet and the Socio-Technical Construction of Cyberspace Values.- II Studying Spaces.- 3 Measures and Maps of Usenet.- 4 The Dynamics of Mass Interaction.- 5 Conversation Map: A Content-based Usenet Newsgroup Browser.- 6 Silent Participants: Getting to Know Lurkers Better.- III Enhancing Spaces.- 7 Computer Mediated Communication Among Teams: What are Teams and How are They Virtual?.- 8 Co Web Experiences with Collaborative Web Spaces.- 9 From PHOAKS to TopicShop: Experiments in Social Data Mining.- 10 GroupLens for Usenet: Experiences in Applying Collaborative Filtering to a Social Information System.- 11 Exploring Interaction and Participation to Support Information Seeking in a Social Information Space.- Appendix: Studying Online Newsgroups.- A.1 Introduction.- A.2 Posting to Usenet.- A.3 Usenet Propagation.- A.4 The Birth and Death of Newsgroups.- A.5 How Messages Look.- A.6 How Usenet Is Accessed.- A.7 Invisible Layers of Usenet.- A.8 Dealing with Usenet Data.- A.9 Conclusion.