It's the end of an era: the Berkeley Mac Users Group (BMUG), one of the largest Mac users groups in existence, just closed their office. In a letter to members, they cite the reason to be falling membership renewals and their resulting inability to afford the office space. They've also decided to stop printing and sending their massive biannual newsletter, which, if you've never seen one, was truly a wonder to behold: they were roughly the size and thickness of a local telephone directory. BMUG will now be focusing most of its available resources on fostering its online community, Planet BMUG, which is a First Class-based bulletin board and the most vital and active component of the group.

This brings up an interesting point: is the Internet killing users groups? After all, people who join users groups often do so to gain access to a pool of information so that they can learn more about their computers and have a resource to turn to when things go wrong. Now that the Internet has made that kind of information so easy to find, we can certainly understand why users groups simply can't afford real-world office space and honest-to-goodness printed newsletters anymore.

Or, possibly, it's just us. We used to be members of the Boston Computer Society, which, at the time, claimed to include the largest Mac users group in the country. A few years ago, the BCS shut down after something like twenty years in existence, leaving us without a users group. So we joined BMUG, who graciously stepped up to the plate and offered to take on orphaned BCS members by transferring memberships. Now, while BMUG is still going, it's upsetting to see them struggling financially-- especially after rumors over a year ago that they were close to tanking. Sense a pattern? So we're staying well away from all users groups these days, so that we don't infect them with our karma. It's just our particular albatross to wear.