But this month marks the 40 year anniversary of electronic mail, better known as email.

In October of 1971, Ray Tomlinson sent the world’s first email. That little push of a button would eventually change the world forever.

As reported by thenextweb.com, Tomlinson worked for a research and development company tasked to create a computer program that could send messages to different users on a single computer.

Tomlinson took his job one step further, attempting to send messages between different computers. He did so by incorporating the ‘@’ symbol to distinguish between the different machines or networks to send the messages to.

Email became widely used on ARPANET, which was a military communications system. It would later become public on the World Wide Web.

Similar to the roots of modern email, social networking has a long and rich history.

A few years after the first ever recorded email was sent, two Duke University graduate students began working on a class project that would transform the tech world. They created a computer based communications network known as Usenet and it was released to the general public that following year.

Built over the same ARPANET framework as email, Usenet was similar to email in a lot of ways. One key difference was the social aspect of Usenet, which shared messages publicly.  Anybody with access to a News Server could read them.

Unlike early email, Usenet was readily available to the masses. You could connect to others and share your ideas globally, rather than just individually.

For the first time you could have a conversation with all different types of people from all over the world. It was the place to network online.

Usenet is even more social today than it was 30 years ago.

Each day, users upload more than 9 Terabytes of information to Usenet.

With an account from Binverse, you get access to all of that data.  And with binary retention of more than 1,000 days, you are sure to find just about anything you are looking for.

Email and Usenet may both be getting on in years, but they remain as useful as ever.  When something works, it works.

Don’t be surprised when they are both around for another 40 years!

Well you are in luck!  Just a little more than a year after leaving American Idol, Simon Cowell is bringing us just that.

Last night was the premier of The X-Factor in the U.S.  Which has Simon reunited with Paula Abdul as judges in an Idol like talent competition.

And the buzz that has been building in the T.V. world has spilled over onto Usenet.

X-Factor Fan in Seattle

As with any popular topic, a new newsgroup (rec.arts.tv-x-factor) was established on Usenet for fans to talk about the show.

Really, it is no surprise that the discussion would move to Usenet.

Usenet stores a massive amount of information.  More than 8 Terabytes of posts are uploaded every single day!

And with more than 100,000 newsgroups, Usenet has something for everybody.

Whether you want to talk about the latest development release of Firefox, the next iPhone or yes, even the X-Factor, Usenet has you covered!

From Tim Berners-Lee announcing the World Wide Web back in 1991 to Mozilla’s recent announcement of Boot to Gecko.

Shortly after Berners-Lee unleashed the Web on the world, Linus Torvalds made his own splash in the comp.os.minix newsgroup on Usenet.

Yesterday marked the 20th anniversary of Linus Torvalds’ release of Linux to the world.

For those who don’t know, Linux is a computer operating system which is based on free and open source software.

Linux is in fact one of the most prominent examples of open source software.  With open source software, generally the underlying source code can be used, modified and distributed by anyone.

This software is usually the result of many different people in many different locations working on the project for the benefit of all.

Usenet has long been a haven for the open source movement, providing a method for communication and distribution of large files among developers around the world.

Current versions of major open source projects such as Firefox, Ubuntu and VLC Player can be found on Usenet.

And today you can find Linux running everything from mobile phones to supercomputers.  The 10 fastest supercomputers in the world all run Linux!

With technology changing at such a rapid pace, it is easy to see what is newest and shiniest as being the best.

But as Linux and Usenet continue to prove, only the truly great can last for 20+ years.

Today, we are pleased to announce that a new and improved version of the Binverse Usenet Mac client is on the way!

And the new version includes a feature we’ve been after for a long time, One-Click Downloads.

What’s a One-Click Download?

Now, when hover over one of the search results in the newsreader, you will see a “Download” button appear to the right.

Just click on that download button one time and the file immediately begins to download to your computer.

One-Click Downloads

It doesn’t get any easier than that!

And in addition to One-Click Downloads, this updated mac client also includes a number of bug fixes and performance enhancements.

As well as all the features you’ve come to expect from Binverse:

• Built-in Usenet Search Engine for searching the massive 800TB of uploads available
• Preview audio, video and image files before you download them
• 256-Bit SSL encrypted connections for privacy and security
• Uncapped download speeds.  Download as fast as your internet connection will allow

New & Improved Binverse Mac Client

At Binverse we are always striving to make your Usenet experience as Fast & Easy as possible.

The new Binverse Mac client is in the final stages of testing and will be released to all Binverse users in the coming weeks.

Check back here at the Binverse blog for updates.

It was on that date in 1991 that Tim Berners-Lee took to the Usenet alt.hypertext newsgroup to announce plans for the World Wide Web.

Now the Internet itself dates back to the 1950′s and ’60s.  With the TCP/IP protocol being standardized in 1982.

And Usenet, which also uses the Internet, came into existence in 1979.

But it wasn’t until August of 1991 that Berners-Lee laid out the plan for a web of documents or pages connected with links.  And the “Internet” that most people know was born.

1st Pic Ever Uploaded to the Internet in 1992

Obviously, this was nothing short of a revolution.  A revolution that has taken us from “You’ve Got Mail” to Facebook.

At the time the World Wide Web was announced, Usenet was already a thriving international community with discussions on every topic imaginable.

And so it was appropriate that Berners-Lee took to Usenet to announce the World Wide Web.  Much the same way that companies like Mozilla continue to announce their plans on Usenet today.

Now, 20 years can go by in a flash.  But like a fine wine, Usenet and the World Wide Web both continue to get better with age.

Happy Birthday to the World Wide Web!  Here’s to another 20 years.  One can only imagine what the web will look like in 2031!

You have undoubtedly heard of their products like the Firefox web browser and Thunderbird email client.

Mozilla is not your average technology company. They are a global non-profit dedicated to promoting openness, innovation and opportunity on the web.

And when Mozilla wants to announce a new project they are working on, they do it on Usenet.

Recently, Andreas Gal took to the mozilla.dev.platform newsgroup on Usenet to announce Boot to Gecko or B2G.

Similar to Chrome OS or Apple’s iOS, this ambitious project aims to create a “complete, standalone operating system for the open Web.”

No more apps that work only on your iPhone or Android phone.  Apps created with B2G would work across all devices.

Usenet has long been the place for major technology announcements.

The original Mosaic browser, Linux and the World Wide Web itself were all announced on Usenet.

And even today, Usenet continues to be the place where bold tech projects are born!

Today, a simple Google search for Binverse will give you more than 3 million results.

We are certainly flattered by all the attention!

Want to hear what they are saying?  Check out our top ratings on Tucows and CNET.

Or see some of the great reviews we’ve received from sites like Comparere, Red Ferret, Harley Hahn and 1Usenet.com.

We work hard to bring you the best Usenet experience possible and we always appreciate when that gets recognized in a review.  Thanks for noticing guys!

We’ve also made it easier for you to find us on your social networks as well.  With updated pages on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn, you can stay up-to-date on Binverse enhancements and special deals.

As always, if you have any questions or suggestions for us here at Binverse, we’d love to hear from you.

Basically 1 human year is equal to 7 dog years.

It seems like the Internet moves in dog years too.

For example, it’s hard to remember a time before YouTube.

Where else would we have learned not to provoke Charlie with our finger?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OBlgSz8sSM

But it’s only been 6 short years since the online video behemoth was unleashed on the public back on May 25, 2006.

And to say it’s been popular is a bit of an understatement.  As part of their birthday blog post, YouTube announced that it has surpassed 3 Billion videos viewed per day.

That’s basically one video each day for every Internet user in the world.  Pretty impressive.

And while there seems to be no end to YouTube’s growth, they’ve got a long way to go until they catch the original Internet sensation, Usenet, which will turn 32 (that’s 224 in dog years!) this year.

Be sure to check out the Binverse YouTube channel for video updates from Binverse.

Can’t remember the name of the guy who played Mini-Me?

Want to know how much money Titanic made on it’s opening weekend?

No sweat, IMDb’s got you covered.

It really is the movie reference site on the internet.

What most people don’t know is that IMDb actually got its start on Usenet before commercial web browsers were even available.

Back in the early 1990′s, movie buffs would flock to the rec.arts.movies newsgroup to discuss everything related to the film industry.

This included lists of credits for actors, actresses and directors covering thousands of movies and television series.

On October 17, 1990, Col Needham released a set of scripts which let a user search these lists, and The Internet Movie Database was born.

More than 20 years has passed since then, and the amount of information available on Usenet only continues to grow.

Here at Binverse, our built-in search makes it easier than ever to find what you’re looking for on Usenet.

Like anything that is useful and worthwhile, IMDb & Usenet have both stood the test of time.

If you’ve never used Usenet or just haven’t checked it out in a while, try it free for 3 days and see what you’ve been missing!

First it was the news that Apple has been logging and storing location information from iPhone and iPad users for the past year.

Then it turned out that Android was doing the same thing, only you had to opt-in to Google’s location based services for that to happen.

And now, satellite navigation provider TomTom admits to making location information available to local authorities.

We are now aware that the police have used traffic information that you have helped to create to place speed cameras at dangerous locations where the average speed is higher than the legally allowed speed limit.

Tracking your every move may work for the likes of Apple, TomTom & Google, but not for us here at Binverse.

In fact, we go overboard to insure your Usenet activity is kept private & secure.  All our plans come with 256-bit encrypted connections to keep prying eyes out.  And we don’t keep any server logs so there is no record of your downloads.

With Binverse you can rest assured we’ll never share your data with anybody, because we literally don’t have anything to share!