Usenet is distributed among a large, constantly changing conglomeration of news servers that store and forward messages to one another via 'news feeds'. Ī major difference between a BBS or web forum and Usenet is the absence of a central server and dedicated administrator. Discussions are threaded, as with web forums and BBSs, though posts are stored on the server sequentially. Usenet resembles a bulletin board system (BBS) in many respects and is the precursor to Internet forums that became widely used. Users read and post messages (called articles or posts, and collectively termed news) to one or more categories, known as newsgroups. Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979, and it was established in 1980. It was developed from the general-purpose Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Usenet ( / ˈ j uː z n ɛ t/) is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. Arrows between clients and servers indicate that a user is subscribed to a certain group and reads or submits articles. Arrows between servers indicate newsgroup group exchanges (feeds). The blue, green, and red dots on the servers represent the groups they carry.