Your Internet Consultant - The FAQs of Life Online

How can I advertise my product on Usenet?

Announcements of professional products or services are allowed on Usenet; however, because someone else is paying the phone bills, the announcement should be of overall benefit to Usenet. Post to the appropriate newsgrou--such as comp.newprodto announce your new computer gizmo--but never to a general-purpose newsgroup such as misc.misc or comp.sys.mac.games. Clearly mark in the subject area of your article that it is a product announcement. At the most, post one article per product. If you're announcing multiple products, group them all into one article.

Advertising hype is especially frowned on. Stick to technical facts with a minimum of "pitch." Obnoxious or inappropriate announcements or articles that violate this policy will generally be rejected.

The Internet, when used properly, is a great way to find customers and sell your wares, whatever they may be. (Several examples of online products and services follow.) But beware: if you don't heed the Internet's culture, the masses will turn on you, doing your business more harm than good.

An excellent place to look for more information on Internet advertising is Michael Strangelove's "Advertising on the Internet" FAQ document. You can obtain this document by sending e-mail to Michael directly at mstrange@fonorola.net.

You can get the comp.newprod FAQ by FTP 

rtfm.mit.edu:/pub/usenet/news.answers/newprod
A larger area for commercial postings is the biz news hierarchy. There's a FAQ for this group, too, available by FTP 
rtfm.mit.edu:/pub/usenet/news.answers/biz-config-faq
Here's the introduction to the newsgroups from that document: 
"Biz" is a hierarchy of newsgroups that are carried and propagated by
sites 
interested in the world of business products around them Ñ in
particular, 
computer products and services.  This includes product announcements, 
announcements of fixes and enhancements, product reviews, and postings of
demo 
software.
While not supporting the electronic equivalent of a newspaper ad, the "biz"

hierarchy is specifically intended to carry traffic of a commercial,
factual, 
and often technical nature. Thus, some sites that operate under restrictions

against carrying such traffic may not be able to carry the hierarchy.

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