Google Buys Deja.com’s Usenet

Google Inc. took over Deja.com’s Usenet discussion service, adding more than 500 million wide-ranging messages to one of the Web’s most extensive search engines. Terms between the privately held companies were not disclosed. The deal is a coup for Mountain View, Calif.-based Google, a rising Web star, and spells the end for New York-based Deja, an online search pioneer that never found a way to make money from its popular service. In 1995, Deja--originally known as Dejanews--created a quick and easy way to read and post messages on Usenet, an online forum that doesn’t use the same computer code that powers the World Wide Web. While opening up Usenet’s discussion boards to Web browsers, Deja also created an archive of all messages posted in the newsgroups. Deja’s technology allowed Web surfers to perform searches to focus on specific discussion threads.