Mailing lists are funneled into news groups. This isn't a new idea; several mail-to-news gateways exist. What's new with Gmane is that no messages are ever expired from the server, and the gateway is bidirectional. You can post to some of these mailing lists without being subscribed to them yourself...
But now there's new problem. To read netnews I need a netnews reader. It typically downloads the lists locally, so now I'm filling my hard disk with crap, and I have a new client to maintain. Wonderful... But I avoid trading one problem for another using the built-in news reader in the Opera browser, and I track *and share* news groups in Del.icio.us. Opera handles the news:// protocol very nicely and allows easy integration with tagging and bookmarking.
A typical use case: is to search del.icio.us for tagged news links and locate the news group at Gmane. (Clicking a news link with Firefox is harmless, if a little confusing at first, because it does nothing and gives no feedback). Links to new news groups are pasted into Del.icio.us with added tags and descriptions; they're ready for recall, and to share among your colleagues and network. The Web interface of Gmane allows easy searching, sorting, browsing and viewing of list posts.
Gmane is not a comprehensive archive of newsgroups, but it's easy to subscribe a list. A important feature for list owners is that you can also import list archives.
HTML meets good ole netnews and everyone wins.
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