However, the chat feature had no obvious way to tell us when other users were viewing a discussion so that we could start a chat session with them. We could have a chat room and a discussion open in two browser windows, but this lacks the elegance and direct integration that Ubique Ltd.'s Virtual Places offers. This allows users to join Web Crossing forums via a newsreader. This is invaluable when browser-based messaging is too slow or when replies must be composed offline and posted later. To post a reply via NNTP, we simply entered the server address and port in a newsreader.
Administrators can require passwords to use the NNTP function or can turn it off.
Web Crossing 3.0 can't receive a feed from an external NNTP server, however. Future versions of Web Crossing will use NNTP to provide links to non-Web Crossing systems, such as Microsoft Corp.'s Exchange, Lotus Development Corp.'s Notes and others that support NNTP, allowing companies with incompatible groupware systems to share a discussion, Lundeen officials said. This feature worked well, and we could understand the context of the discussion. Users posting to a forum via newsreaders have messages forwarded to the e-mail list, an interesting way of further integrating newsreaders and other discussion mechanisms. See the Executive Summary for Web Crossing 3.0.