Alternatives to Penn's NetNews service

Penn’s NetNews service will be retired on June 30, 2008. Below is a listing of products and services that can help users of NetNews transition to viable alternatives for this service.

Class Discussions

• BlackBoard Academic Suite
• Several professors manage bulletin boards and blogs for their classes. Consult with your professor to learn whether such resources exist for your class.

RSS Feeds

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is an XML format used to publish frequently updated content to sites such as blogs, news headlines, or podcasts. RSS content can be read using software called an "RSS reader", "feed reader" or an "aggregator". Interested parties subscribe to a feed by entering the feed's link into the reader or by clicking an RSS icon in a browser that initiates the subscription process.

A few of the most commonly used RSS readers include:

• Google Reader: http://www.google.com/reader/view/
• Bloglines: http://www.bloglines.com/

The major search engines also offer custom home pages that allow embedded RSS feeds. For example,Yahoo offers my.yahoo.com and Google offers desktop.google.com.

RSS lists to some of the more popular sites.

Most major news sites and blogs provide RSS feeds. Below are links to some of the most popular sites:

• Chronicle of Higher Education: http://chronicle.com/help/rss.htm
• CNN: http://www.cnn.com/services/rss/
• The Economist: http://www.economist.com/rss/
• Free Library of Philadelphia: http://libwww.freelibrary.org/rss/rssmenu.cfm
• New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/
• Philadelphia Inquirer & Daily News: http://www.philly.com/philly/about/rss_index/
• Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/tools/rss
• Science News/Scientific American: http://www.sciam.com/page.cfm?section=rss
• University Communications: http://www.upenn.edu/pennnews/rss.php
• Wall Street Journal: http://online.wsj.com/public/page/0_0813.html
• Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/rss/

Discussion Groups and Boards

Discussion groups allow you to choose whether you want to read and post messages online, or to just use your current email account to read and respond. Below are links to some of the more popular groups and boards:

General Discussion & UseNet type groups

• Yahoo Groups: http://groups.yahoo.com/
• Google Groups: http://groups.google.com/

Google and Yahoo also offer private groups that allow the moderator to restrict access or the ability to post to certain people.

Local discussions, personals, and “For Sale” type postings

• Craig’s List Philadelphia: http://philadelphia.craigslist.org/
• Craig’s List General: http://www.craigslist.org/about/sites.html

Philadelphia specific discussions:

• Philly Blog: http://www.phillyblog.com/