Practical Internet Groupware

Lotus Notes, Web Bulletin Boards, and NNTP Newsgroups

You can create a pool of shared documents by using any of the kinds of conferencing I’ve defined. For example, what Lotus Notes does best, right out of the box, is conferencing. The original and still most essential Notes application is the discussion database. Like NNTP newsgroups, Notes discussion databases are threaded sets of messages with attachments. A Notes discussion can also present views other than NNTP’s Author:, Subject:, and Date: views. Notes users can easily tweak the discussion template, adding new fields to the underlying database and corresponding new ways to view the discussion. Notes deeply integrates email and conferencing, using a single data store for both activities. That integration solidifies Notes’ position as the premier solution for users who frequently work offline and must synchronize between local and central data stores.

Notes has a whole lot going for it. I rate it as the Cadillac of conferencing systems. Why, then, don’t I use Notes? Well, I don’t drive a Cadillac either; I drive a Honda Civic. I regard NNTP-based systems as the Honda Civics of the conferencing world. They’re cheap, they’re widely available, they’re less complicated and more reliable than you may think, and they do the basic job well.

What about purely web-based conferencing systems? There are lots of them; see David Woolley’s summary page at http://www.thinkofit.com/ for a current list. In the long run, I think today’s standalone ...