Yahoo! Groups: Difference between revisions
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===Message search 2009=== |
===Message search 2009=== |
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In February 20, 2009 the search feature for messages stopped working. The official Yahoo! Groups blog stated that Yahoo was working to fix the problem |
In February 20, 2009 the search feature for messages stopped working. The official Yahoo! Groups blog stated that Yahoo was working to fix the problem.<ref>[http://www.ygroupsblog.com/blog/2009/02/20/groups-update-message-search-moderator-logs-bounce-management Groups Update: Message Search, Moderator Logs, Bounce Management]</ref> Yahoo! has fixed this search feature and message search is working fine for all groups. |
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===Yahoo Groups remodel 2010=== |
===Yahoo Groups remodel 2010=== |
Revision as of 04:25, 21 December 2012
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Type of site | Internet forums electronic mailing lists |
---|---|
Owner | Yahoo! |
Created by | Yahoo! |
URL | groups.yahoo.com |
Commercial | Yes |
Yahoo! Groups is one of the world’s largest collections of online discussion boards. The term Groups refers to Internet communication which is a hybrid between an electronic mailing list and a threaded Internet forum, in other words, Group messages can be read and posted by e-mail or on the Group's webpage like a web forum. In addition, members can choose whether to receive individual, daily digest or Special Delivery e-mails, or simply 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.
It is not necessary to register with Yahoo! in order to participate in Yahoo Groups. The basic mailing list functionality is available to any e-mail address, but a Yahoo! ID is required to access some other features.
Despite their popularity Yahoo! Groups have been called a goldmine Yahoo! has never mined.[2]
Features offered by Yahoo! Groups
As well as providing e-mail relaying and archiving facilities for the many Groups it hosts, the Yahoo! Groups service provides additional features for each Group web site, such as a homepage, message archive, polls, calendar announcements, files, photos, database functions, and bookmarks.
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", moderator, members, public. Here is the complete list of possible group features:
- Group members
- Messages: Post via web or email to group. No edit function except delete.
- Photo album (100GB): 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 (owners or 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 approval: It is possible to switch to strict moderation if required.
- Web tools management: Options are off, public, members, administrators.
In 2006, Yahoo! discontinued the chat feature in Yahoo! Groups.[3] On Feb 1, 2011 Yahoo! Groups launched a beta version of Group Chat.[4]
Yahoo! Groups Directory
The current Yahoo! Groups Directory organizes groups in these main categories:
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There is a Yahoo! Groups search box available at the Yahoo! Groups homepage. The search function currently provides these options for sorting the results by:
- Best match
- Number of group members
- Age of group (newest first)
- Age of group (oldest first)
Joining a group or directory listing
A group receives a web address and an email address when it is created and can be listed in one of the Yahoo! Groups directory categories if desired. Groups listed in the Yahoo! Groups 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, these groups are not publicly listed in the Yahoo! Groups directory and access to them is restricted. People wanting to visit an adult group receive an "adult content" warning and must agree to it each time a member visits the group.
History
Yahoo! Groups was launched in early 2001 as an integration of technology from eGroups.com and community groups from both eGroups.com and Yahoo! Clubs.
1998
Yahoo! Clubs was launched in 1998 as a logical extension of services that had already been developed by Yahoo - message. 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 [5] (product management) and Matt Jackson (lead engineer), both of whom have since left the company. Yahoo! Clubs quickly grew to be one of the largest traffic-generating products within the Yahoo! network of services.
2000-2005
In August 2000,[6][7] Yahoo acquired eGroups.com, one of the most popular group collaboration products at the time. About eight months later, the new Yahoo! Groups product was launched which merged eGroups.com and Yahoo! Clubs. The resulting product is typically one of the Top-five page-view-generating sites across the Yahoo network.
Yahoo! Groups functionality remained static 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.
2006
Yahoo Answers module
In 2006 Yahoo Groups introduced an option to add a Yahoo! Answers module at the bottom of group homepages. Group managers can control whether the module will appear on their Group homepage and if so, the type of Yahoo! Answers category to be included.[8] However, this option has been removed in the Groups Remodel of 2010.
Advanced Message Search
Also in 2006, Yahoo Groups introduced an improved message search that includes an Advanced Message Search allowing a search by on any combination of message date, author, subject and message body.[9] The Advanced Message Search also disappeared in Groups Remodel of 2010
2008
On October 2008 Yahoo introduced a new universal Yahoo! Profile[10] replacing the Group profiles and Yahoo! 360 Profiles, both of which were utilized by Group members prior to this introduction. The use of "adult" profiles was discontinued at that time. [11] On June 7, 2010 Yahoo! announced that the universal Yahoo Profile has been replaced by Yahoo! Pulse.[12]
Recent feature upgrades[13]
2009
Posting from the Owner Address
This new feature was announced on Nov 19, 2009. [14] It allows Group managers to post messages to their Group from a Group Owner’s email address. Before this new feature was introduced, Group managers had to use their personal address even when making official Group announcements.
Forward button removed from Yahoo! Groups
On Feb 4, 2010, the Yahoo! Groups team announced that the Forward feature had been removed from the web interface. The removal of this feature was announced as a spam-fighting counter-measure. The team claimed that spammers had been misusing the Forward feature to mail Group messages to up to 50 recipients each time.[15]
2010
Groups Updates Email
The Groups Updates Email feature was introduced In 2010. It allows YG members to check in one email all the updates that occur every twenty four hours in all their Groups, and helps moderators keep spam out. The items can be new photos, links, files, polls, applications, application entries, applications comments, members (but only for groups with fewer than 100 members), and database tables.[16] Members can choose to turn on/off the ability to receive this daily email.[17]
Yahoo Groups remodel
In September 2010 a major facelift was rolled out, making Yahoo groups look very similar to Facebook. However, several key features were removed, notably the ability to respond directly to the sender of a message rather than the group, and the ability to use a Rich Text editor. The first of these changes would dramatically impact the ability of many groups such as Freegle and Freecycle to keep functioning, affecting over 9 million users worldwide. The second would affect many RPG groups and collaborative fiction projects, as they often use different font colours to distinguish story threads or individual authors.
Other features removed included the Expanded view of the Message Archives, which allowed users to read messages in chronological order from top to bottom; the message history grid on the Home page, a table which showed the number of messages posted by month and year (this was useful for prospective members wanting an idea of a group's activity level); automatic quoting of the original message in replies posted via the group's website; the option of viewing ASCII art, computer programs and tables in messages as plain text in a fixed-width font; the ability for ordinary members (non-moderators) to view the HTML source code of a message (helpful to members and moderators in tracking trolling attempts); and compatibility with any browser not supporting advanced JavaScript, including browsers in mobile phones, PDAs and the like. Because of the new interface's much greater reliance on visual as opposed to text elements, accessibility issues for blind and visually impaired users with screen-reading software were also anticipated.
Group Deletion program announced on Yahoo! Groups Blog
On November 11, 2010 the Yahoo Groups Team announced house cleaning to start the following week. According to the ygroups blog this would involve deleting any Group that is more than six month old and contains no Messages, Photos or Files [18] [19]
2011
Group Chat Beta
On February 1, 2011 the Yahoo! Groups Team announced the launch of a Beta version of Groups Chat [20]
New Help Forum
Sometime at the end of 2011, the Yahoo! Groups staff started communicating with Group members through yet another unannounced new forum. [21]
2012
Newly created Groups cannot use the add members function
Moderators of new Groups started on April 9, 2012 and thereafter, can no longer add members to the Group. Members must initiate joining themselves.[22]
Yahoo! Groups Calendar revamped
In mid May an announcement appeared on the Groups web site warning members of an Upcoming Groups Calendar upgrade. According to the announcement members may not have access to their Group Calendar (for up to 24 hours). This announcement was still displayed on the home pages of all Yahoo! Groups on July 3, 2012. [23]
Group Chat Beta and Applications discontinued
In June 2012 a message appeared on top of all Group web sites announcing that the Beta Groups Chat and Applications will be shut down on July 4 and asking members to backup any data created. [24]
Criticism and controversy
Message search 2009
In February 20, 2009 the search feature for messages stopped working. The official Yahoo! Groups blog stated that Yahoo was working to fix the problem.[25] Yahoo! has fixed this search feature and message search is working fine for all groups.
Yahoo Groups remodel 2010
On August 31, 2010, Yahoo Groups started rolling out a major software change.[26] This change was denounced by a vast majority of users.[27] On September 29, 2010, Jim Stoneham, Vice President of Yahoo!’s Communities products, announced that based on members feedback Yahoo Groups will be rolling back the recent changes.[28] The loud protests of Yahoo Group members [29] prompted Yahoo’s CEO Carol Bartz to tell USA Today during an interview that Yahoo will be letting Group users pick whether they want to stay with the old-formatted Groups or join the new-formatted [remodelled] Groups.[30] (Play video) The remodel was completely abandoned on January 12, 2011.[31]
Site statistics
In August 2008 YG staff reported 113 million users, 9 million Groups, and availability in 22 languages.[32]
The web analytics website Quantcast reported around 915 thousand unique visitors to the YG website(US) daily in July 2010. In January 2011 this number increased to 933 thousand unique visitors daily. This number does not include YG members who access the Groups site via email.[33]
In Sept 2010 at its "Product Runway" event, Yahoo told reporters that Yahoo Groups has 115 million Group members and 10 million Yahoo Groups.[34]
See also
References
- ^ "Groups.yahoo.com - Traffic Details from Alexa". Alexa Internet, Inc. Retrieved 2009-11-18.
- ^ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-burrus/yahoo-groups_b_1611741.html?utm_hp_r\ ef=technology&ir=Technology
- ^ Yahoo Closes Chat Under Pressure. Wired.com. Retrieved on 2010-11-20.
- ^ "Yahoo! Groups Blog » Beta Group Chat Live". Ygroupsblog.com. 2011-02-01. Retrieved 2012-05-04.
- ^ DailyStrength — the health support social network. VentureBeat (2006-11-26). Retrieved on 2010-11-20.
- ^ Yahoo buys email list service eGroups in stock deal - CNET News. News.cnet.com. Retrieved on 2010-11-20.
- ^ Yahoo! Media Relations - Press Release. Docs.yahoo.com. Retrieved on 2010-11-20.
- ^ Yahoo! Groups. Tech.groups.yahoo.com. Retrieved on 2010-11-20.
- ^ "ResourceBlog Article: Yahoo Groups Adds Advanced Search Options". web.resourceshelf.com. 2006-06-22. Retrieved 2010-11-20.
- ^ "Yahoo! Accelerates Social Momentum - Integrates Facebook Globally Across More than 15 Yahoo! Sites" (Press release). yhoo.client.shareholder.com. Retrieved 25 November 2010.
- ^ "Clarification about the Yahoo! Profiles photo announcement". ygroupsblog.com. March 27, 2008. Retrieved 25 November 2010.
- ^ Template:Vi icon Yahoo! Pulse Retrieved on 2010-11-20.
- ^ What’s in store for Yahoo! Groups
- ^ Groups Updates: CAPTCHA, Posting from the Owner Address, Email Moderation
- ^ "Yahoo! Groups". Tech.groups.yahoo.com. Retrieved 2012-05-04.
- ^ What is the Updates Email? | Group Members Help. Help.yahoo.com (2010-11-12). Retrieved on 2010-11-20.
- ^ [1][dead link]
- ^ "Yahoo! Groups Blog » Yahoo! Groups is house cleaning!". Ygroupsblog.com. 2010-11-11. Retrieved 2012-05-04.
- ^ "Yahoo! Groups Blog » Yahoo! Groups cleanup questions & other concerns". Ygroupsblog.com. 2010-11-16. Retrieved 2012-05-04.
- ^ "Yahoo! Groups Blog » Beta Group Chat Live". Ygroupsblog.com. 2011-02-01. Retrieved 2012-05-04.
- ^ http://help.yahoo.com/communities/index?page=forums&y=PROD_GRPS
- ^ http://help.yahoo.com/kb/index?locale=en_US&page=content&y=PROD_GRPS&id=SLN2567
- ^ http://help.yahoo.com/communities/index?page=forums&topic=23ad229a56134c799f6d3d1c88e5a105&message=344e1d89e9b94cb2a96bb58ed4106e63&viewlocale=en_US&searchid=1341366878244#344e1d89e9b94cb2a96bb58ed4106e63
- ^ http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/GroupManagersForum/message/38419
- ^ Groups Update: Message Search, Moderator Logs, Bounce Management
- ^ Yahoo! Groups Blog » Welcome to the improved Yahoo! Groups!. Ygroupsblog.com (2010-08-31). Retrieved on 2010-11-20.
- ^ de beste bron van informatie over tch crunch. tchcrunch.com. Retrieved on 2010-11-20.
- ^ Yahoo! Groups Blog » Latest Update on Our Changes. Ygroupsblog.com (2010-09-29). Retrieved on 2010-11-20.
- ^ Yahoo! Groups. Tech.groups.yahoo.com. Retrieved on 2010-11-20.
- ^ Lieberman, David. (2010-10-08) Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz: 'creepy' Facebook is biggest rival. Usatoday.Com. Retrieved on 2010-11-20.
- ^ "Yahoo! Groups Blog » New Groups Experience Rollback". Ygroupsblog.com. 2011-01-10. Retrieved 2012-05-04.
- ^ Yahoo! Groups Blog. Ygroupsblog.com. Retrieved on 2010-11-20.
- ^ Quantcast profile for Yahoo! Groups
- ^ Yahoo Refreshes, Upgrades Some Products, eWeek.com, 2010-09-17
External links
- Articles needing additional references from August 2006
- Yahoo! Communication
- Internet forums
- Collaboration
- Webmail
- Community websites
- Knowledge markets
- Social information processing
- Social networks
- Web applications
- Internet properties established in 1998
- Yahoo!
- Products introduced in 2001
- Electronic mailing lists