Yahoo! Groups
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| URL | http://groups.yahoo.com/ |
| Commercial? | Yes |
| Type of site | electronic mailing lists |
| Registration | Yes |
| Owner | Yahoo! |
| Created by | Yahoo! |
| Launched | 1998 |
| Alexa rank | 3[1] |
| Current status | Active |
Yahoo! Groups is the one of the world’s largest collections of online discussion boards. The term Groups refers to an Internet communication tool which is a hybrid between an electronic mailing list and a threaded Internet forum. Group messages can be posted and read by e-mail or on the Group homepage, like a web forum. Members can choose whether to receive individual, daily digest or Special Delivery e-mails, or they can choose to read Group posts on the Group’s web site. Groups can be created with public or member-only access. Some Groups are simply announcement bulletin boards, to which only the Group moderators can post, while others are discussion forums. The variations of Yahoo Groups are vitually endless.
As well as providing e-mail relaying and archiving facilities for the many Groups it hosts, the Yahoo! Groups service provides additional facilities for each Group web site, such as a homepage, message archive, polls, calendar announcements, files, photos, database functions, and bookmarks. The basic mailing list functionality is available to any e-mail address, but a Yahoo! ID is required to access most other features.
Yahoo! Groups' competitors are Google Groups and Windows Live Groups.
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[edit] History
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Yahoo! Groups was launched in 1998 as a logical extension of services that had already been developed by Yahoo - message boards, calendars, profiles. Yahoo! Groups were first known as Yahoo! Clubs. Unlike previous Yahoo products, this product was designed to allow much deeper levels of user control over creation, membership and overall direction of communities. Development was led by Doug Hirsch [2] (product management) and Matt Jackson (lead engineer), both of whom have since left the company.
Yahoo! Groups quickly grew to be one of the largest traffic-generating products within the Yahoo! network of services; even today the site is typically one of the Top 5 page-view generating sites across the Yahoo network.
In mid-2000[3][4], Yahoo acquired eGroups.com, one of the most popular mailing list products at the time. About 8 months later, Yahoo merged the eGroups.com functionality with Yahoo Groups, resulting in some complaints from users of both adult services.
Yahoo Groups languished between 2000 and 2005. In 2001 Yahoo! deleted adult groups from its search directory, making it very difficult to locate Yahoo! groups with adult content. A Yahoo! user who wishes to find a group with adult content must therefore either know the exact name of the group, or attempt to find it by using a search engine or one of several online adult group directories. This has created what some view as an "underground" atmosphere for Yahoo! adult groups. While it is unclear whether the intention of Yahoo! was to diminish the number or merely the easy availability of these groups, adult groups on Yahoo! have continued to increase. In 2005, a revived ability to generate revenue through targeted search-related advertising resulted in renewed interest, which has slowly received new features since then.
[edit] Yahoo! Groups Directory
The current Yahoo! Groups Directory organizes Groups in these main categories:
- Animals
- Business & Finance
- Computers & Internet
- Cultures & Community
- Entertainment & Arts
- Family & Home
- Games
- Government & Politics
- Health & Wellness
- Hobbies & Crafts
- Music
- Recreation & Sports
- Regional
- Religion & Beliefs
- Romance & Relationships
- Schools & Education
- Science
There is a Find-a-Yahoo!-Group Search box available at Yahoo! Groups homepage where one can find a Group by using search terms. The Search function currently provides these options:
- Best match
- Number of members
- Age of Group (newest first)
- Age of Group (oldest first)
[edit] Joining a Group/Directory listing
A Group receives a web address and an e-mail address when it is created, and can be listed in one of the Yahoo! Group directory categories if desired. Groups listed in the Yahoo! Group directory can also be found via a Yahoo! Groups Search.
New members can join groups directly, or may be invited by a moderator to join. Some Groups have restricted memberships, which allow Group managers to accept or reject new members. Some groups are closed and allow only members who have been directly invited by a Group Manager to join the Group.
Yahoo Groups also includes so-called adult Groups, however, adult Groups are not publicly listed in the Yahoo! Group directory, and access to them is restricted. Individuals wishing to visit an adult Group receive an "adult content" warning, and must agree to it each time a member visits the Group.
[edit] Feature list
Each new Group created at Yahoo! Groups allows the creator (Group Owner) to have several features attached to the Group. Some of the features can be selected for Off, Admin, Members, Public. Here is the complete list of possible Group features:
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- Messages: Post via web or email to Group. No edit function except delete.
- Photo album (100MB): Organized into album/thumbnail structure.
- File storage (100MB): Capable of storing any file format.
- Link directory: Options for folders, text labels for each link.
- Poll: Members can create multiple-choice polls, including various options for ID display.
- Database: Up to ten tables, each with up to one thousand rows and up to ten columns.
- Member list: Scroll of registered member profiles, and the basics of the information they provide.
- Calendar: Scheduling system for clubs with regular events.
- Promote: HTML box for website display (to join a group).
- Administration Owner/Managers (who can do post approval)
- Invite: to invite more members by email.
- Management of members (approve new members, delete members).
- Management of messages (approve new messages , delete messages).
- Options: Edit of the group homepage display text etc.
- Post/Picture approval: It is possible to switch to strict moderation if required.
- Web tools management: Options are Off, Public, Members, Administrators.
As of Spring 2006, Yahoo! has discontinued the chat feature in Yahoo! Groups.[5]
[edit] Issues
As of February 20th, 2009 the search feature for messages stopped working. The official Yahoo! Groups blog stated that Yahoo was working to fix the problem[6], the search feature has not been restored to all groups yet [7].
[edit] Recent feature upgrades
[edit] Posting from the Owner Eddress
This new feature was announced on Nov 19, 2009 [8] . It allows Group managers to post messages to their Group from a Group Owner’s eddress. Before this new feature was introduced, Group managers had to use their personal eddress even when making official Group announcements.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ "groups.yahoo.com - Traffic Details from Alexa". Alexa Internet, Inc. http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/groups.yahoo.com. Retrieved 2009-11-18.
- ^ http://venturebeat.com/2006/11/26/dailystrength-the-health-support-social-networking-site/
- ^ http://news.cnet.com/Yahoo-buys-email-list-service-eGroups-in-stock-deal/2100-1023_3-242517.html
- ^ http://docs.yahoo.com/docs/pr/release588.html
- ^ http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2005/06/67999
- ^ [http://www.ygroupsblog.com/blog/2009/02/20/groups-update-message-search-moderator-logs-bounce-management Groups Update: Message Search, Moderator Logs, Bounce Management
- ^ [http://www.ygroupsblog.com/blog/2009/03/17/groups-search-update Bug Update
- ^ http://www.ygroupsblog.com/blog/2009/11/19/groups-updates-captcha-posting-from-the-owner-address-email-moderation/ Groups Updates: CAPTCHA, Posting from the Owner Address, Email Moderation
[edit] External links
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