As the Internet developed, people migrated their conversations from bbs's to "newsgroups".

Newsgroups functioned exactly as bbs's functioned; each newsgroup functioned as a single "chat room" where people could post text messages and read the messages posted by others. But while a bbs was created "grass roots" by some independent person who operated a server computer, the creation of newsgroups was organized and administered by an Internet committee. While a bbs operated in whatever way its operator decided, an Internet newsgroup operated according to standards published by committee, using standardized software with standardized appearance and function. But these differences were merely technical; a newsgroup, just like an earlier bbs, created a "place" where people could post text messages and read the messages posted by others. Eventually, there were thousands of such places, and people could find a newsgroup that existed to accommodate conversations on just about any topic.