Researchers at Microsoft are working on technology that makes it easier to navigate Usenet news groups and could eventually help clear clutter in e-mail inboxes, a Microsoft researcher said Tuesday. A Microsoft concept called the Community.Net Server takes a new approach to displaying Usenet groups and message threads, making it easier for users to pick a relevant group, cutting out spam and displaying the most active threads first. The concept is for Usenet groups, but can be extended to e-mail, Microsoft Research Sociologist Marc Smith said in a presentation at Microsoft's Mountain View, California, campus.

Usenet is a giant, distributed database of discussion groups, called news groups, that predates the World Wide Web. Postings in the tens of thousands of groups can be read with a Web browser or with reader software such as Microsoft's Outlook Express. Typically Usenet groups are listed alphabetically in a reader, group information is limited to basics such as the number of messages, and message data is limited to message size, poster name, and time and date of posting.