To the next level with Google Groups 2

By Jakob Jelling
http://www.sitetube.com

If you haven’t visited the Google Labs lately, they have

released a beta of Google Groups 2 that you may want to check

out. This is Google’s answer to Yahoo Groups, and they’ve

added some new features to make their service more useful.

For those who don’t know, such groups allow anyone to easily

and quickly start their own announcement lists and discussion

forums. There is no need to install scripts or anything else

on a web site, and no technical knowledge beyond email and

posting to a discussion board is needed. If you want, you can

use Google Groups to post to and read Usenet postings as

well.

Of course, nothing is truly free, and Google Groups is no

different. In exchange for making the technology available to

host your group, Google displays relevant text ads on your

group’s home page on Google. “Relevant” is determined by the

content of your Google Group discussions. This is the same

type of technology used by Google to display AdSense

advertising on web sites and relevant text advertising on

their free Gmail email service.

The process to create a group is fast and painless. Just

create your group’s name and email address, and invite your

members to join. You are able to make your group either

public or private, and Google has provided a new interface so

that you can see your group’s postings sorted any of several

different ways. The Beta 2 Google Groups also features

dynamic conversations, with both Usenet and mailing list

postings created within 10 seconds, and indexed within 10

minutes from post.

Families, old college running buddies, online communities,

and many others may find benefit in using Google Groups, and

the Beta 2 release is worth a try.

About the author:

Jakob Jelling is the founder of http://www.sitetube.comVisit his website for the latest on planning, building, promoting and maintaining websites.

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