Google® Power Tools Bible

Chapter 22. Participating in Google Groups

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• How Usenet has been transformed for Google Groups

• Searching Google Groups and nearly the entire archive of Usenet postings

• Understanding your Google Group search results

• Finding and joining Google Groups

• Creating and managing your own Google Group

• Creating mailing lists and newsletters using Google Groups

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Google Groups, formerly DejaNews, maintains an interface to Usenet News groups created by Google members and mailing lists. Google Groups also maintains an archive of postings to Usenet dating back to 1981, nearly from the beginning of Usenet itself. For more information about Usenet, read “Introducing Usenet” at the beginning of this chapter. Point your Web browser to http://groups.google.com. You don’t need to have a Google account to use Google Groups, but extra features are available when you do have an account. Figure 22.1 shows how you can search through all the groups for information or find a group that interests you.

Figure 22.1. Search Usenet News groups using Google Groups.

Introducing Usenet

Usenet is one of the earliest Internet applications. Most people think of the Internet as just e-mail and the Web, but Usenet was around long before the World Wide Web. Usenet is based on the idea of the computer bulletin board, the way people who had computers communicated with each other before ...