Dear Moderators,

I have been giving you the product update from time to time. Some of the new releases that we had for Yahoo! Groups in the recent past are following:

• An entirely new search and browse system. This new system fixes a number of known issues, makes search updates much faster, and improves the sort order when you browse for groups (many
Enhancements related to this release were highlighted in the Yahoo! Groups Blog some time back.

• A new "Groups Lab" initiative which consists of a team of folks who work to create features within Groups that can be customized by moderators to fit the specific needs of their group. The People Map is an example of a feature that was developed by this team.

• A new technology platform for the site (not quite fully released). We are changing every page of the site but doing so in a way that won't disrupt your existing experience. This new platform will allow us to release features much faster than ever before.

What’s more to expect in the coming days

But the exciting news is what is to come in the future. Here is a short list of the features we plan to unveil to you in the coming year:

• New ways for people to share information with each other within your groups: Product Reviews, Services Directory, Wanted Boards, Address Book, Event Planner, and many more.
• Message Boards 2.0: Improving the Message experience within groups in many different ways (e.g. giving members the opportunity to choose which discussions they want to subscribe to, making it easier for moderators to highlight the best content, etc.).
• Ability to charge an optional subscription fee for membership to your groups (we have no plans to get in the middle of the transaction, just make it easy for you to make sure members are paying).
• Photo Album 2.0: An entirely new photo system with massive group storage and stunningly large photos.
• The return of archived attachments: We will process attachments and store them on your group, if you choose this option.
• For our non-English speakers, the ability to select the language you want to view the site in and better handling of all types of character sets.

To read more (and to comment) please visit the Groups blog

Best regards,

Shefali Gaur