Slashdot Mirror
New Google Groups in Beta
qwe writes "Google has apparently launched a new version of their Google Groups, currently in beta. It looks a lot like Gmail. One can attach a star to message threads. One can even create new groups, although they aren't actual Usenet groups."
Now I can start alt.slashdot.first-post
An effective signature identifies a particular user amongst a base of thousands.
And if you have a Gmail account you already have a login for the Google groups.
Nothing was greater than when Google bought out Delphi and took over the largest USENET archive of all-time.
Google always does things the right way without ruining the user experience or their wallets.
In Google We Trust...
(P.S. I have three Gmail invites anyone up for one -- I already gave away 5 to friends/family?)
If you liked my post,
I read about this a couple weeks ago. What took it so long to appear on Slashdot? (maybe I should have submitted it :P)
Anyhow, an improvement over Google Groups, but I almost LIKE the older, lighter version.
WASTE - The Secure P2P
While the idea of a GMailish like system for newsgroups is a good thing, the whole thing seems limited by the fact that new groups can only be viewed using Google Groups, which gives them less readership.
How many Google Accounts does one need? Google presently maintains unrelated signons for...
- Google AdWords (to buy ads with Google)
- Google AdSense (for webmasters who want to show Google's ads)
- Google Answers (their rather obscure paid researcher solution)
- Free SiteSearch (for webmasters who want a custom colorset when users use a Google box on their site)
- Google API (for programmers who want to use Google via SOAP)
- GMail (the hot webmail beta test)
- Google Groups Beta (the new service we're talking about)
- Blogger (the blog site they aquired)
Yahoo and MSN/Passort of course have the privacy implications of there being a single-signon accross a wide network of websites some of which are operated by partner companies... but Google is developing the reverse problem. As you move from one service of Google to another, and the user may very well have different passwords at each of the logon points. Very confusing, and an annoyance to users.
The good news is that Google appears to be in the process of merging these databases for the free services and an account created today for one free services now gets access to all of them except GMail. They are showing signs that they intend on getting AdWords and AdSense into that system as well. Hopefully we'll just need one google.com cookie to get everything Google has soon...
It looks a lot like Gmail.
Yes, and your Gmail account corresponds to your google groups account.
Look what the cat drug in -> New Slashdot Google group.
Click here to join it or this About: link to read more about it.
If you liked my post,
As Google keeps expanding, they are looking more and more like a simplified Yahoo!.
Will Google put people off by losing the one thing that made them extremely individual in the big wide world of web search engines/portals?
Beta test it?
"Server Error
The server encountered a temporary error and could not complete your request.
Please try again in 30 seconds."
Well, I did my part!
The beta doesn't have an advanced search tab.
How am I supposed to search just recent activity?
Maybe it'll take time to get used to, but I don't really care for it. Reminds me of Yahoo Groups and the Usenet subjects' font are too big, thus not a lot of subjects displayed on the default view.
It's a Shame that
Server Error
The server encountered a temporary error and could not complete your request.
Please try again in 30 seconds.
Keep on occuring
... very old.
http://labs.google.com, check it out. The Google groups Bata have been oublic for a while now.
Server Error
/me bows
The server encountered a temporary error and could not complete your request.
Please try again in 30 seconds.
My god, slashdot has taken down google..
[ UNSIGNED NOT NULL ]
Where is "Sort by Date"?
The ability to subscribe to newsgroups with my gmail account!
Google just keeps bringing out the winners!
made me think it would work well in a forum type situation, I didn't for one second think of usenet, the worlds largest forum.
this is either going to be the best thing ever or the end of the world as we know it
or even both.
**** lying is wrong even for sleeping dogs
Is this "new"? I know there's been a beta version of Google groups for some time - it's basically a free listserv server. So have they changed stuff since I was there a few days ago or is /. behind the times?
Google is pulling a microsoft by embracing and extending Usenet.
Once you go public you gotta turn evil, it's the law.
No seriously, they can be sued by shareholders if they don't do it!
Capitalism is teh...you decide.
I've generally been pretty satisfied with Google's treatment of the old Dejanews archive. Dejanews was *great* while it existed. You didn't have to be "registered" to post to USEnet in the early stages of its existence, the "author profile" feature was always really fun, and it featured well-thought-out article tracking and thread handling. Deja.com was something else entirely (one of the strangest company metamorphosis ever, really) yet the few months post-Deja and pre-Google were really nightmarish--I didn't realize what a resource Usenet archives could be until they weren't around.
Google's first version of "Groups" was very bare-bones, yet while its innovations were sound--in particular, Google's search function was far superior, and its extended-to-early-1980s-archive was a delight--it dropped several features that made Dejanews so much fun. And while Google insisted that it was going to gradually revamp its Groups UI, it never really did so.
Google's big holdout (and one which they apparently were originally intending to fix back in Groups' early days) was its inefficient sorting system. Groups has a quirk/bug that Deja managed to avoid: simply put, threads with like-titles are "merged together" in the "view thread" interface, despite not necessarily having anything to do with each other. Say you're searching for information, and it comes up in a thread called "The Beatles on tape." You click on the "View thread" button. In the left pane will be a huge list of responses. But most will likely not be related to the discussion at hand, as Google throws all threads ever titled "The Beatles on tape" into that list. Deja would intelligently organize by article ID, generally preventing that sort of thing from happening, but Google never bothered to fix that design quirk despite promises to the contrary.
From the look of the new Groups, it appears as if Google's trying to create an odd synthesis between Yahoo Groups and Usenet. I certainly hope they don't forget that providing a well-thought-out Usenet interface should be priority #1, with Yahoo-esque bells-and-whistles as a secondary concern.
White supremacy is #1 .....Isn't that what I was talking about er: Wiki when I said anyone can game the system to make anything you want a 'fact'?
Nazi is #2
Of course, they still haven't done anything to fix the problem of breaking threads that shouldn't be broken or reassembling threads that aren't related, other than by having the same title.
GSpot: surf and organize all your porn in convenient directories. Sort by threads, or lack thereof!
"Is this just useless, or is it expensive as well?"
Server Error
The server encountered a temporary error and could not complete your request.
Please try again in 30 seconds.
Add some distributed moderation and Google Groups could become the Slashdot of everything.
How many governments has the EU overthrown recently?
Uh huh. Thought so.
Slashdotted! It seems to be having errors pretty consistently... I bet someone is regretting the HTTP-REFERRER they are seeing in the logs
meh
Would this place too much burden on the usenet servers and open up new doors for mass abuse, or would the greater access extend the richness of usenet to provide more answers that might not be worthy enough to appear on someone's website?
-- In Soviet Russia, radio listens to YOU!
... nightvision GOOGLES! You know... with all this criminals recording movies on the theaters... ;)
If it were Microsoft i would be very scared, but, well, is Google, with a good story of openness (i.e. google API), doing things well, and getting their virtual "monopoly" doing things well, not with vapourware or doing dirty tricks to make people not follow the competence, not even limiting people on choosing the competence.
I can make a *real* newsgroup. Ph33R M3!
(It's not rocket science. You just have to know the right codes to put in a newsgroup post.)
--
"I have also mastered pomposity, even if I do say so myself." -Kryten
Unfortunetly, you can't post on usent using google, unless you're willing to post your shiny new gmail address for all the world's spammers to see :(
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
It rocks!
I can type email for REAL TIME JUNK!
-- There is four mistake in this sentences.
How odd that I noticed this earlier in the day. Slashdot is slower than my own curiosity these days. For Shame.
I had personally sent an email a few weeks back suggesting they merge gmail with groups to some extent. Bring back the glory days of dejanews.
In fact, what is google missing nowadays when it comes to search?
A telephone name and reverse lookup type system would be nice. yahoo has one of those I think, but it sucks. I'm sure if google were to provide one it would be fairly straightforward
It'd be nice if google also provided babelfish.altavista.com type services. too bad google cant just buy altavista.
a simple weather report would also be something other search engines have that google doesnt.
what else is google missing that a good information search service should or could have?
Have the administrators of Orkut or Gmail announced tentative road maps stating when the sites plan to finish closed beta testing?
I sincerely hope this does not replace the current Google Groups layout.
The layout of this beta is confusing and wrought with unnecessary features...completely unintuitive.
What's wrong with Google Groups in its present state?
I hate to be pessimistic and I realize it's in BETA, but why fix what isn't broken?
This really isnt that new. I've known about it for at least a month, and as you can see at google labs, it has actually been online for nearly 2 months. Very cool though, GO GOOGLE.
Actually, Google Groups 2 was already in beta for awhile a few months ago, but then they took it down.
- Allen Pike
Altering time, one time at a time.
you mean like this or like this?
or perhaps a translation tool?
try these too.
Get your Novell on and wrap it all up in some eDirectory. DirXML it to your hearts content if need be. And run it on Linux! Probably run the whole thing on 1 or 2 servers.
-m
http://www.invisik.com
...you insensitive clod!
This is to compete with yahoo groups, and the old egroups when it existed. It's not meant to have anything to do with usenet. It lets you host an email listserv-type-thing but with a web presence too, without having to have your own server.
I've been using the beta version for a week. The main difference is that instead of having newsgroups updated twice a day, they are now updated instantly.
In other words, google takes a step towards the darkside with a proprietary and closed psuedo-usenet. If MS was doing this, everyone here would be screaming for vengence.
Keep your eye on google, they have the potential to do a lot of wrong.
May 13.
Anyways, I have tested a few google groups, its an odd combination of usenet and yahoo groups. Not planning on doing much with them unless google adds more features.
With google approaching its IPO, I have little doubt that more of google's services (groups directories) and web utilities (google bar / google button) will undergo "improvements." These improvements will certainly change the services and make them more commercial. We have seen gmail, which is, as far as I am concerned, the most commercial implementation of any free e-mail service (advertising based on keywords in e-mail).
Google has brought us a great search engine, and a great set of tools. I am a firm believer in their services and products, despite the commercial implementations. One of google's guiding principals has been "do no evil" and we can only hope that this principal stays the same once google becomes public. Just my $.02. I will of course continue using google every day.
In nature, there are neither rewards or punishments, there are only consequences.
... but I guess it's all about money now.
What's the big deal? So they are rolling out their version of a typical forum/message board. The fact that it will be displayed side by side with newsgroups is hardly earth shattering.
I hope they improve the searching options a bit. I regularly search NANAS or NANAE (new.admin.net-abuse.sightings/email) for a domain I suspect of spamming. Unfortunately the period is ommited from the search strings, so a search for spammer.com also matches notaspammer.net and huntdownandflogspammers.org. I would love full regex abilities. I'd actually pay for good Google Groups access.
While we all love Google for their great search engine, all is not well in the land of search engines. You might want to check out this site .
When you look at the state of the world, how can you not become a radical, liberal anarchist?
This has been on labs.google.com for quite a while now. A couple of months.
However for those wanting to start a group, you'd wanna do it now before all the good names go.
That's the part that worries me. I typed my first Usenet post over ten years ago, shortly after getting my first internet account (yeah, I know, I was on AOL, but we were all young and stupid once.) What struck me about Usenet was the properties that I soon learned applied to the Internet as a whole: Nobody owns Usenet or its content, nobody can easily regulate or censor Usenet, and Usenet tends to find its way around any distruptions in service (since it's not all stored on one giant server.) One day DajaNews started collecting and saving Usenet posts, making them available through their web site. I found that idea disturbing, sort of like when I saw my first Canter & Segal spam. I quickly realized, however, that given enough disk space and bandwidth I too could archive all the chatter and discourse that is Usenet, and there was nothing that anyone could do to stop me. Usenet discussions could theoretically be made immune to virtual book burning.
DejaNews was eventually bought by Google, which continues to archive most of the non-binary groups, as well as provide a web-based portal to Usenet. It does not, however, have the only copy of Usenet. Other companies like Yahoo, Delphi, ( and even Slashdot) have created their own user group systems, accessable only from their servers, and viewable only with a web browser (after all, what good is the Internet if you can't put banner ads on it?) If you don't like the way that your newsreader sorts & displays, you can get a different one, or even write your own. If you don't like the spam posts that Delphi weaves among regular ones, or the spam page that they present to you before allowing you to see a group, tough sh*t. You'll read Delphi postings the way they want you to , or you won't read them at all. If Delphi goes belly up, all their archived posts could go to the highest bidder, or maybe just disappear completely.
Google has always worn the white hats, so far. If they become as popular with these groups that "aren't actual Usenet groups." as they've gotten with their search engine, what happens if Usenet slowly dissappears when everyone jumps on the Googler bandwagon? What happens if this central database, owned by a single company, is no longer freely accessable?
BTW, I highly recommend GigaNews Usenet service. I've used them for about 5 years now; good consistant service, & they never tried to pull anything sneaky.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
I've been using the new Groups 2 for months. Where has /. been? Mars, perhaps?
It would be nice if google provided a transation feature that doesnt produce non-sensical translations.... (Italian is shocking)
Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast... - AJ Rimmer
What would remove most of all these problems, if one has already created accounts for more than 2 of their services is to allow one to link accounts (if they provide a username/password of course). Once linked this would allow one to login to orkut using any number of their linked usernames/passwords. Atleast, that's what I hope for as its a pain to have one login for gmail (which has been unaccessable here lately) and another one for orkut.
Jisho - A Japanese English German Russian French Dictionary for the rest of us.
The nice thing about the google groups beta is that you can track your favorite usenet group using a news aggregator that supports atom.
The only downside I have found is when you select the article you do not get an option to view the article in context like you get if you are doing an ordinary search. Hopefully they will fix that.
..why no one has mentioned that google may now be exploring different business models. maybe they don't care about you anymore. you may be a google-whore. they are trying to make money now. they are trying to become something way beyond a portal. trust as you will. i still love google, but i'm not afraid of a condom.
I just sent this to groups-support@google.com:
Ditto! Where's the sort by newest date to oldest? I find this feature useful when doing a quick search for my recent newsgroup posts. :(
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Well, I hope they provide a migration toolkit for existing Yahoo! Groups users. I can't wait to search over thousands of chain mail jokes I've shared with my friends over the last 5 years (since Y! Groups was eGroups). Dream on, dream on...
If anyone from Google is reading this, check this out: If the posting uses ISO-2022-JP character set, the Japanese characters show up as some kind of question marks (at least in Firefox 0.8), when viewing the posting in the default, "parsed", mode. For example: parsed article.
BUT, if the viewing mode is set to "show original", the same posting comes up with correct characters (but with ultra-tiny font?!): original version
Show me one free, instant, on-line translation tool that DOES produce sensical translations.
Like this ? (Link is to GoogleFish)
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
I think Google groups will be great when they complete search. The ONLY great thing about Usenet is searchability. It is a pain that there is no answer to the question of which of two posts came first, because there is no central server with a timestamp. And no central way to moderate away spam. Private groups are also useful and not found on Usesnet.
I just tried to subscribe to some groups, read some threads and have google groups keep track of it. I'd say it is 10 times as slow as using a good usenet client. IMO the main advantage of usenet over webforumes etc. is the availability of efficient clients, filters, scoring systems, kill-files etc. that allow you to scan through a large number of groups/threads in minimal time. No web interface will ever come close to that.
One thing I've always admired is Google Groups' user interface -- the pane along the left-hand side makes it very clear where you are at in navigating a thread.
/. is better the way it is?)
Contrast this to Slashdot, where navigating the comments threads can be very confusing. I wish Slashdot could be re-written to something similar to GG. Anyone know the correct address for submitting this kind of suggestion?
(Or, on the other hand, any good reason
- Alaska Jack
/. has become a place for Google beta testers!
Way to go!!!!
nt
Have been trying to get one for months now. Could you please send me one? retu28@yahoo.com
Seems it does not work properly with Russian language.
Are Usenet archives available anywhere else besides GGroups?
John Kerry is a Joke!
I was going to say the same thing. That alone sent me back to the old one. It's the main reason I use Google instead of a real client.
Hey Google! SORT BY DATE LINK PLEASE!
"The pie shall be cut in half and each man shall receive.....death. I'll eat the pie."
will they give me a Gmail invite now
uhm, please?
Take off every 'sig'!
All your 'sig' are belong to us!
I'd kill for one (Seriously!)
uglygitkev^at^spymac^dot^com
Thank you thank you thank you
It is now going to be a competitor. Read that again until you get it - this is a BIG, BIG change.
I've been using this for over a month, and I've known about it for maybe three. Isn't slashdot supposed to post news?
WOW! I mean, wow, thats the one thing we who don't have any access to a nttp server always wanted. When you posted on usenet through the old google groups the process used to take abt 3 to 9 hours. If this delay has been eliminated, this is by far the best thing google could have done in this update. :)
I use both gnus and http://groups.google.com
Where is the advanced section for groups2 ?...
My fear is that Google is going to end up just like Altavista did!
Since three months the Dutch traditional sailing ship rental market has experienced very sophisticated "Google spam" from some large booking offices. This has lead to a serious decline in business of the so called "free ships" that do not work with those booking offices. Reporting this spam to Google has had no result at all... Could this non-response lead to the end of Google? Remember that Altavista was the number one search engine until the flood of "spam" rendered their search results useless. What can be done to stop Google spam if Google does not seem to react to a large number of submitted spam reports?
First some background information. My girlfriend's uncle has been a captain of a traditional sailing ship in the Netherlands for many years now. You can rent his crewed ship for a day, weekend, midweek or week. He is a so called "free captain" since he is not working for one of the booking offices, that in his opinion charge too much.
One of the ways he reaches potential customers is a website which looks quite professional and until this year received a reasonable number of visitors mostly via Google. The problem is that this number has dropped dramatically since some booking offices found a way to get high positions in Google in an "illegal" way: Not with real content but with fake pages that are there to fool Googlebot.
Some of the biggest players in the Dutch charter market (Zeilvaart.com and Zeilvloot.nl) probably hired an expert to enable them to get those high positions. I will try to explain what I found out about the method they are using.
Zeilvaart.com
If you search Google for: site:zeilvaart.com html you will find about 1300 html pages that are all fake pages since it is an ASP website without real html pages. The standard layout of the fake pages is:
Left column: menu with links to other fake pages
Middle column: some text about a random ship
Right column:
- "Verzekerd zeilen..." -> some text about insurance with a link
- "Zeilervaring niet nodig..." -> some text about sailing experience with a link
- "Over de Zeilvaart..." -> some text about the company Zeilvaart
Top menu: leads to the real website
All the fake pages have file names that contain words people might search for when planning a sailing trip. The pages are all the same except for the different links to other fake pages and random ship information.
Take for example this page that is aimed at the key phrase "zeilen IJsselmeer" ("sailing IJsselmeer" in Dutch):
http://zeilen.zeilvaart.com/zeilen_ijsselmeer.html (Google cache)
All the key words are in the URL and on the page are many links to other fake pages that contain other key words, both in content and in URL name: Personeelsuitje, Vergaderarrangement IJsselmeer, SAIL Amsterdam, Zeilen Batavia, Zeilen Teambuilding, etc.
When someone searches Google for these exact words Zeilvaart.com always shows up as one of the first results..... This is big time Google spam! What makes it even worse is that they have started to use Google as their bill board because the title of the page is:
"Heb jij ook zin om te zeilen in het IJsselmeer? Kijk dan op de site van De Zeilvaart!" which translates to:
"Do you also feel like sailing the IJsselmeer? Have a look at the De Zeilvaart site!"
They have given all fake pages such commercial-like titles....
Only clicking an option from the top menu will lead to their real website.
The equivalent in German "segeln IJsselmeer" leads to:
I tried registering into Google groups, with my yahoo email id about 5 times and I was refused. The sixth time I tried my workplace id (non-hotmail or yahoo) and I got an account immediately.
There was news sometime back how about hotmail and yahoo were blocking gmail invites.It's what you would expect an ordinary, run-of-the-mill multi-billion dollar company to do.
Kudos to Google for a great UI. But I feel a bit disappointed.
99% of google products are *always* BETA?
How do you get gmail ?...
The gmail web site appears rather circular !
Helevius
They could add the ability to add real NNTP groups in the future.
Google Groups in Beta
Everything at Google is in beta. Even their IPO. And it never gets out of beta either. That's the secret of Google.
I can't get a Gmail account you insensitive clod.
Google revamps Google Groups 1:52 Monday 07 June 2004 Rejected
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
I liked the old one better because there was less of it. I use a text browser most of the time!
Eat at Joe's.
I'm hoping that Google read ./ and take users'
concerns (and copyright) into account.
Tried it with Firefox and the browser froze. Works fine with Mozilla 1.7. Anyone else notice this?
It suggests posting the message to the new group itself, or alternatively alt.config.
...the current YahooGroups was formed from merging eGroups into the already existing YahooGroups. And then deciding the eGroups interface was better, and using that for both.
If Microsoft (or SCO [cough!]) was doing this, the geeks would be up in arms - but since it's Google (or Apple, *nix, Beowulf Clusters, [snicker] ...) it's "COOL!!!!".
/.
Funny thing, that
I wrote my own web interface to USENET far before either DejaNews and Google Groups. I consider myself somewhat of an expert.
.05% as accurate as before. Not sure what happened, but I put all my old queries that returned the results I wanted into it, and it didn't work AT ALL. Sucks.
I just tried the new interface, and it was rather horrible. The search results were about
Regardless, this should be an open database. Anyone should be able to query it and get an archive of it. It's a public service, and it's just plain EVIL EVIL EVIL for Google to trap it like they have. I cannot even do my job without Google Groups, so they should open up the database so other people can make use of it, even copy the whole thing, and build their own competing service.
This is Microsoft all over again. You don't realize how fucking horrible they are until they start getting complacent or doing something stupid, and you have no way to go around them. At least with open source, you can go around the group as a last resort.
We need OPEN DATABASES for public content.
Then I ask them to remove all my copyrighted content.
Great idea, but what if they have a user agreement that states "All your post are belong to Google"?
I know, I know... YOU won't use it. But almost everyone will. This really stinks of a Microsoft-style embrace and extend.
Show me one free, instant, on-line translation tool that DOES produce sensical translations.
Where's the fun in that?
For instance, let's take a quote. I found this one in someone's signature a while ago.
"The main reason for the downfall of the Roman Empire was, that lacking zero, they had no way to indicate successful completion of a C program"
Translate it to English to German:
"der Hauptgrund für den Downfall des römischen Reiches war, dieses mangelnde null, sie hatte keine Weise, erfolgreiche Beendigung eines c-Programms anzuzeigen"
I don't know German, so let's go back to English:
"The Main reason for the case of down OF the novel Empire which, that lacking zero, they had NO way ton indicate successful completion OF A C program"
It's already getting a little garbled, but let's not stop yet. From garbled English to French:
"la raison principale du cas de vers le bas de l'empire de roman que, ce zéro manquer, elles n'a fait indiquer AUCUNE tonne de manière l'accomplissement réussi du programme C de A"
I do know French, and that doesn't look quite right. Let's go back to English again:
"principal reason of the case of to the bottom of the empire of novel that, this zero to miss, they did not make indicate ANY ton in manner the achievement successful of the program C of A"
You could, of course, send the result to Portugeese and back, ending up with:
"main reason of the example to the deep one of the empire of the novel that, this zero to lack, had not made to indicate ANY ton in the way the successful accomplishment it program C of"
Or through Italian, which leaves us with:
"main reason of the example to that deep one of the empire of the novel of that, this zero to difettare of, had not made in order to indicate WHICHEVER ton in the sense the succeeded realization it program C"
Now where would we be if we didn't have Google's Translation sevice to make fun of?
Are you telling us they are not allowing access to a, *grasp*, BETA product!
Holly doors Batman, those guys are brilliant!
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I'd get a message saying "Your post will be added momentarily" but, 12 hours later it still isn't there.
Anyone else have any better luck?
Best Buy can have you arrested
Their translation tool is missing a few languages
compared to babelfish.
Great, but all that collective knowledge is only going to be available using google then?
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
i like the old UI to groups- it is very intuitive and easy to use.
While the new system seems to add new features, they kinda get in the way of what i use groups for. I hope that they keep the old-style UI around somewhere after this one goes into main usage.
just MHO.
do() || do_not();
No sir, I don't like it. Old one better, new one silly looking.
Lemure, wtf! Don't you mean Lemur?
"How odd that I noticed this earlier in the day. Slashdot is slower than my own curiosity these days. For Shame."
Except that it wasn't news this morning either. I've been playing with it for a week or so already. Unless you frequently check the google labs page, or subscribe to certain Orkut groups (where they appear to be leaking info) there is no reason that you'd know about it.
The system still looks rather primitive, buggy, and flawed (no munging of email addresses in posts to the outside world for example) so my guess is they were happy to not have a million people using it just yet.
Oooops, too late.
Before they start with "google groups 2" they should provide a (win32 or java...) application to access the groups more directly (similar, but not completely like a conventional newsreader), faster than loading 1000 HTML-pages, and with __keyboard control__.
I see your point, but to throw in a number - last month, the German language Usenet hierarchy de retrieved three percent of its articles from Google Groups users. I'm sure that a lot more people are reading Usenet with Google Groups, but it's a long way from Google taking over Usenet.
Great, the spammers have already started abusing it. I poked around and in the Harry Potter group, which was the the first non-Usenet one I came across. There are three messages there, the second of which is this, dated Jul 5:
"Community of singles looking for dates, friends, and relationships. Come and join, and meet your true love. http://www.cuteandsingle.com"
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/harrypotter/br owse_thread/thread/b3165d2df0ef79c9#86fcd2ea1856d5 dd
Am I missing something? Groups Beta was launched in May.
Another site is also reporting that it launched today, too.
But I post to Usenet. I never agreed that they could publish my copyright material as their archived commercial property. The very nature of Usenet means that I agreed to distribution by posting, but I never agreed to any pay-per-view deal.
People pay for accessing Usenet all the time (mostly in combination with binaries). They pay for the service, not the actual postings. It would be the same thing once Google Groups went "premium".
Google's free archive is an amazingly useful service. I just hope that never changes under pressure from stockholders, and if it does, that other alternatives will spring up.
I worry about that, too. Obviously alternative services could be started. But where would they get the older articles? I tried to get my hands on older postings from some groups, and I didn't get very far.
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
Can I send Groups invites to people?
Google Groups beta has been around for well over two months. Slashdot even reported on it at one point.
see the web-tool Lost in Translation
.
. hmmm
Now where would we be if we didn't have Google's Translation sevice to make fun of?
perhaps
Now where would we be if we didn't have Google's Translation sevice of which to make fun?
I have two blogs on Blogger and have yet to receive an invite. Of course, maybe it's because I'm a Registered Repbulican (but only so's ah kin votes agin David Duke twicet, ya see....)
There is nothing wrong with yr Internet. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling the transmission - NSA
It won't. People who use the USENET will continue going to Google Groups for the USENET, and may enjoy a few new "features", and people who use email groups will do just that. The difference is that now both services will be confusingly itegrated.
To put them both under the same umbrella seems to me is just the result of some brainstorming trying to do something "original". But original things don't come from trying to be original, they just *are*.
It seems to me that someone at Google decided to get into the email group business, and so they've got ahold of some old eGroups engineers and say "let's do this but let's not just clone what's out there", and they couldn't come up with anything better.
Not to mention that if you look at Google Groups 2 (beta) now is just a confusing mix of stuff from the old Google Groups plus stuff from Gmail, and when it comes to the real innovation - the email groups - is as cheesy as it can be. Sure, it's beta, but I can see where it's headed. It smells like a lot of work trying to do something without a real direction. They want to get into email groups and they seem to be trying really hard, but no good ideas, just borrowing from what's already done (Google Groups 1, Gmail) and trying really hard not to do what's aleady done by services like YahooGroups, and then, their flagship *idea* - mixing email groups and USENET - just doesn't mix. Then again, some people will go down on their knees, "just because it's Google". Well I hope next project they do really is something outstanding, as everything else Google has done so far.
With this Google Groups 2 thing, they've got it wrong so far. Expect a lot of noise coming out of this one. If it's me, I'd start this one all over again, and with some new thinking heads leading the project, because the current ones just don't get it. They've got too much power, being Google and all, and they're misusing it.
It won't. People who use the USENET will continue going to Google Groups for the USENET, and may enjoy a few new "features", and people who use email groups will do just that. The difference is that now both services will be confusingly itegrated.
To put them both under the same umbrella seems to me is just the result of some brainstorming trying to do something "original". But original things don't come from trying to be original, they just *are*. This ain't it.
It seems to me that someone at Google decided to get into the email group business, and so they've got ahold of some old eGroups engineers and said: let's do this but let's not just copy what's out there, so we can be "different", and they couldn't come up with anything better.
Not to mention that if you look at Google Groups 2 (beta) now is just a confusing mix of stuff from the old Google Groups plus stuff from Gmail, and when it comes to the real innovation - the email groups - is as cheesy as it can be. Sure, it's beta, but I can see where it's headed. It smells like a lot of work trying to do something without a real direction. They want to get into email groups and they seem to be trying really hard, but no good ideas, just borrowing from what's already done (Google Groups 1, Gmail) and trying really hard not to do what's aleady done by services like YahooGroups, and then, their flagship *idea* - mixing email groups and USENET - just doesn't mix. Then again, some people will go down on their knees, "just because it's Google". Well I hope next project they do really is something outstanding, as everything else Google has done in the past.
With this Google Groups 2 thing, they've got it wrong so far. Expect a lot of noise coming out of this one. If it's me, I'd start this one all over again, and with some new thinking heads leading the project, because the current ones just don't get it. They've got too much power, being Google and all, and they're misusing it.