Mailing lists, newsgroups and forums are online places where people meet, exchange information, discuss topics and disseminate knowledge. Participating in newsgroups, mailing lists and forums lets you promote your web site by communicating directly with many thousands of people worldwide who are the most likely to be interested in your product or service. You also gain credibility and visibility, and the cost is nothing but your time. But you must follow the unwritten rules. If a discussion is going on about widget manufacturing trends and your site contains volumes of information in that area, you can attract traffic to your site by posting a message with some of the trends you've observed.

Newsgroups grew out of people's need to share information on mutually interesting subjects. There are over 32,000 newsgroups online and the largest collection of groups is on Usenet, which delineates the groups by categories or hierarchies. The prefix of the group indicates its hierarchy. Some examples are: alt (alternative topics) biz (business) comp (computers) misc (miscellaneous) news (news and discussion about Usenet) rec (recreation) talk (controversial topics)

The suffix contains the group's name. For example, rec.camping focuses on camping. There are two unofficial classes of groups, mainstream and alternative, which tend to be hipper.

You can access Usenet through Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Internet Explorer. It's better to use software specially designed to access newsgroups. For Windows, download Free Agent, which allows on and offline reading, at www.forteinc.com. Also look at www.reference.com or www.dejanews.com.

Usenet is much more text-based than the web, with no pictures (although you can download pictures from some newsgroups to see offline.) Usenet holds a vast array of information from the sublime to the ridiculous, from crazy ramblings to instructions for growing big tomatoes and almost any other imaginable topic.

Many newsgroups have loyal participants who are willing to exchange useful information with each other.

If you select a group and can read its messages you can also post your messages to that group. A small number of groups are moderated and your message will have to be approved by the moderator. Moderated newsgroups are far easier to deal with because there is less extraneous talk. As a rule, Usenet groups are self-policing and the members have developed ways to deal with unwanted behavior. Post a message that breaks "the rules" and you can end up being flamed (bombarded with hostile messages) or having your server overloaded with e-mails by a disgruntled member of the group.

Since there are only so many hours in a day and only so much time you can devote to forums, newsgroups and mailing lists, look for a few that most closely match your market. Establish your presence in one group at a time and participate often.

People with similar interests subscribe to mailing lists. When a member sends or answers an e-mail to the list, all members receive the message. Members also can communicate directly with other members. To find mailing lists, use www.liszt.com where you'll find a directory of many thousands of public lists categorized by interest.

Mailing lists have two broad categories, private or public, moderated or unmoderated. Private list membership depends upon your fulfilling some requirement which can vary from professional qualifications to just giving your e-mail address. Moderated lists have a person who acts as a message gatekeeper. He or she will read all submitted messages and post only those meeting acceptability requirements. Thankfully, the moderator may edit rambling messages or produce a digest of messages. Without a moderator all messages are posted to all subscribers, who can end up with dozens of daily messages, some non-sensical, from the list.

Forums are discussion groups located on commercial online services like America Online, or can be part of a website. To access a forum, you must be a subscriber to the online service that hosts it. You usually can read the messages in a forum but you generally have to formally join (simply by registering your name) so you can access its libraries, conference rooms or classified advertising area.

If the topic is Accounting, for example, the forum may have guest participants who are expert in business tax law, or investment planning, or establishing banking relationships. If you have expertise in the forum's area, you can promote your site or your expertise to a huge number of people by leading or participating in a conference. Your website and qualifications will always be identified and a transcript will be archived in the library for others to view.