A specific section of the Internet where messages are posted in topic-specific "bulletin boards" or newsgroups. It contains only a few newsgroup sections, like rec.*, and sci.*. Often erroneously used to describe Net.news in its entirety.

An original subset of the entire, vast collection of Internet newsgroups organized hierarchically by subject of interest. See also newsgroup.

Usenet News groups are one of the many facilities available on the Internet. Like most of the internet, Usenet News groups are run voluntarily & co-operatively by people like you & me. A News group is centred on a discussion topic an example being rec.sport.soccer. Within these News groups several discussions or Threads take place on themes within the discussion topic. A news group devoted to the great rock guitarists may have a thread on who is the best guitarist out of Clapton, Beck & Page for instance. If you are having a problem getting something specific to work in a spreadsheet there will definitely be a news group to which you can pose your problem & it won't take long to get many responses. Unfortunately news groups appear to be the vehicle for a majority of the more undesirable topics that pollute the internet. If you see a particular News group of interest you can "subscribe" to it. Once this has been done you "post" your article & eventually it can be seen by anyone else who subscribes to the particular news group.