It’s not everyday that a Google product announcement goes largely unnoticed. That’s exactly what happened yesterday when Google announced a “new version” of Groups.
The reason for no fanfare is that it isn’t exactly a new version… well, there is a new version, just not now, but in October. Back then, when it was really new, I enthusiastically welcomed the change:
“Wrapping it up, in a major step forward, Google Groups which so far has been just a group email mechanism, becomes a mini community/collaborative platform, likely attracting previously “email-only” users to the native web-interface – and we all know why Google loves that. “
Google Groups may very well be the only (?) product that entered Beta stage twice – back in October, when all the goodies were added, Google re-labeled their upgraded product as “Beta”. Today, with this new announcement I’m not finding any new-new features. I suspect all that happened was Groups grew up again, and left the Beta stage. Funny that the word “beta” is not once mentioned the announcement, but comparing the logos, that’s the only conclusion I can draw.
Tags: google, google groups, google groups beta, perpetual beta, collaboration, google page creator, file storage, google drive, gdrive, marketing, PR
There is nothing really unusual about Groups having had more than one beta; it has had more than one major upgrade. Maybe it seems strange because the versioning is not made public.
There are many new group sites popping up now. Perhaps that is why Google removed the beta label. Check out http://www.nexo.com for a great new group site.