Why Use Google Groups
Do you stay in touch with a group of people using a list of email addresses? Maybe you're away from home and you want to let everyone know what's happening. Or you're a volunteer worker and you want to let people know you've posted to your blog. A quick email message is a great way to do that because almost everyone has an email account. Even though there are plenty of fancier ways to stay in touch with a group, it comes down to this: even though your mom doesn't know how to subscribe to a web feed, she knows how to read email.
The bad news is that if you are keeping a list with more than a few addresses, then you know how hard it is to keep it organized and up-to-date. And the chore only gets harder as the list gets longer. On top of that, your email client doesn't do a great job at handling bulk mailings. If you put all the addresses on the "to:" line, then some people will not like having their addresses sent all around. If you put the address on the "bcc:" line, then your message looks funny because isn't addressed to its recipients. Either way, a spam filter along the way could mistakenly trash your message.
If you have a list of more than a few email addresses, you should take a look at creating your own Google Group. You can create a group in just a few minutes, and it is free.
Once you've created the group and added your members, you can reach the group by sending to a single email address, such as"my-group@googlegroups.com". Google takes care of sending the message to everyone on the list.
Here's why I think a google group is a better alternative:
- People can control their membership in the group. They can join, change their email address, and drop off the list all on their own. You don't have to be involved, although you can do all that for them. And if you want to control who is in the group, you can set it up so that you have to approve new members before they can participate.
- The group keeps a history of all the messages. So, if someone is looking for the details on an event you announced, or if they are trying to remember your new summer address, they can go to the group web page and look it up.
- You can get help with maintaining the group. You can give permission to whoever you want so that they can help with the chore of keeping the group running. There might not be much to do, but it is nice to know you can get help if you need it.
- People have options for how they receive messages. They can receive each message individually. They can receive a daily summary if they feel like they are getting too many messages each day. And they can turn off email completely and read the discussion on the group web page.
(You can take the Google Groups tour to learn more about how it works.)
As with most things in life, the group also has some drawbacks. First on the list is making sense of how Google handles the "sign in" process. When you sign in, you're signing into Google, not just a one group. You can use whatever email address you want (it doesn't have to be a gmail address) and whatever password you pick. Once you've signed in, you can get into any group where you're a member. That's nice for me, because I belong to eight groups right now and I don't need a separate sign in for each group. But for the guy who belongs to just one group, it can be a nuisance. None of this is very clear on the web site, so I plan to post details on how to get started.
In the end, if you decide your google group isn't working out, you can always close it down and go back to your old scheme. All you loose is the time you spent. So go ahead and give it a try. I'd like to hear how it works out for you.
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