New Google Groups Shows Off Changes

Google Inc. has announced that the latest version of Google Groups offers its users, the ability to build a home on the web for sharing and maintaining information, along with tools for creating customized web pages.

Google says it now provides a richer forum for group collaboration with new features such as the ability for groups to create and contribute to shared web pages without coding, advanced customization and file sharing among the group. The new version also allows users to see other members in the group and facilitates reading of group discussions in a Gmail-style interface.

Moreover, group owners will now have a variety of options for managing access to the group. They may choose to make all content completely private and visible only to group members, or they can offer their pages and resources for public viewing. The new version also offers options for controlling viewing and editing capabilities for individual group members.

Google Groups also continues to offer a variety of options for keeping up with active conversation within groups. Users may reply to another member’s posted message on the group’s space or post a message or questions of their own. Users can also choose whether they want to read and post messages through the group space, or use their current email account to read and respond.

Users are required to have an e-mail address to join a Google Group, although a Google Account will enable users to fully take advantage of all the new features of the latest version of Google Groups. All users, including those with existing Groups, will see the new version of Groups when they log in. The new version is available at http://groups.google.com in English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Dutch, Brazilian Portuguese, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Russian, Swedish, Polish, Turkish, Korean, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, and Japanese.