Not too many years ago, before the web began to mature and dominate, usenet news was among the most popular Internet-based services. There were no web forums, so people doing what we're doing here would be doing it in a newsgroup like alt.www.webmaster or comp.infosystems.www.servers.misc instead.
In some ways, then, you could think of it as being similar to a web forum in function in that anyone can post "articles" for others to read. In function it's different: every post is forwarded to local "news servers" where users access them, instead of staying in one place like on the webhostingtalk.com server.
You can access usenet either through your ISP -- as them if they offer "news" or "newsgroups" -- or through the web. One web-based access point is
Google Groups -- that's usenet. Or if you want to use direct access through your ISPs news server, or another such server, you can use Windows programs like
Forte Agent (a free version is available). Or you can use Outlook, or Internet Explorer (go to Tools --> Mail and News --> Read News), or Netscape Navigator, etc.
Other than through your ISP, there are services that offer usenet access to end users. One of those is
SuperNews, but a search engine query will show you several others.
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