I've found that the people who even know about Newsgroups will totally refuse to even look at commercial messages, since there's so much free porn to be had right there. It's pretty easy to cherry pick on alt.binaries.men.gay.

And on top of that, the whole usenet, while still hopping busy, is something that the average web surfer has absolutely no idea about. Most people don't know it exists, let alone know how to use it. On the occasion it comes up in conversation, I more often than not get blank stares and requests for the "Site Address".

I've found that my response from Newsgroups has been iff at best. Oddly enough, the response I get from Yahoo and MSN groups is far better. It seems to depend on what you're objective is.