🚀 go-pugleaf

Our two main reasons for keeping a news feed (including rec, etc.) are
  
  1) We get valuable technical info from comp and sci, in some cases
     well before it appears in journals.  I make a point of mention-
     ing these little tidbits to my boss and the CEO, so they're well
     aware of the importance of netnews to our R&D lab.

  2) Rec, alt, etc., are a nice perk which helps keep valued employees 
     around.  News is addicting.  Admittedly, with the current economy,
     a lot of companies are looking to cut perks, but you have to 
     consider the long-term effect, especially in industries where
     people move freely between jobs.  

One thing we've done to keep company time from being wasted is to have
a couple of low-speed modem lines for employees to call in on after
work hours.  That way, we can say, "you can read rec.music.misc, but
please try to keep it on your own time."  Of course, this might be an
expensive solution for a larger company.  

-- 
Larry Spence
larry@cs.com
uunet!csccat!larry