Yahoo Groups

What are your thoughts on Yahoo Groups? Do you ever take part in or use them?

Do you have any Yahoo Group competitors? For me, they're the only competitors I have. There are no forums (vB, IP.Board, MyBB, etc.) in my niche other than myself, but there are plenty of Yahoo Groups. A few of them are extremely active, and I used them to my advantage when I first launched my forum. In fact, all of my founding members came from these groups.

Most people seem to end up leaving the Yahoo Groups and fleeing to my forum because they say that people on the groups are so rude and unpleasant, and they are relieved to find a real community once they come across my forum.

What is your experience with Yahoo Groups?

 

There are a few Yahoo Groups in my niche, but I don't consider them serious competition because everyone says the people there are unpleasant. (Actually I thought that was unique to my forum. Maybe there's something in the avatars and other personalization aspects of a real forum that makes people treat each other with more respect?)

 

My experience matches yours exactly.

Not only do yahoo groups have behavior issues, they are cumbersome, unwieldy, and have little disk space for files. Those yahoo people are joining on a daily basis.

The yahoo groups do indeed serve a purpose. It allows the people a place to talk that are not a good match for a forum, for example they do not have the ability to behave.

 

Why is it these Yahoo Groups generally regarded as being full of poorly behaved people? What is it about them that attracts that type of user?

 

Many times people start them up and abandon them. I am unsure what, if any, mechanisms are in place to actually do something about the bad behavior.

Just like forums, once things start to go downhill the good people go away, leaving only the not so good people.

 

There were two I joined. One I liked because it had articles related to what was on the radio show and the other is anime related. I just get emails because the navigation and limitations make using Yahoo Groups a pain.

 

I see it as yahoo groups has a purpose, but are no real comparison for a well rounded forum. I am a member of a yah0o group that is on the same topic as my site. It seems that I get 3, 4 or even 5 emails a week from them. If I sent out that many emails, it would be close to 100,000 messages weekly - on top of what my site is already sending out.

There are some nice sized yahoo groups, but it seems that people sign up, lose interest and leave. They lack basic functions like a forum - such as uploading files, embedding videos (unless that has changed), and some of the other basic features most forums have.

 

I've only had one experience with yahoo groups and it was good. The group actually formed from several related niche forums. I haven't signed in or posted in years since I sold most of my cars. But I the group is still running good judging by the emails I get.

 

Ive never used them at all before, I dont even fully get what theyre for

 

I find the groups to be a good way to attract members. They usually seem very lenient on competitive advertising, so you should give it a try. Most of the group leaders don't understand the value of forums, so as I said, they usually let advertising go by. At least that's my experience.

 

So you think it would be a good idea to join them and advertise? I'd want to avoid bringing the wrong kind of people to my forum though.

 

I never thought of that, but some of the "nasty" Yahoo Group-goers did find their way to my forum.

After some heated threads and warnings, they quickly realized that I would not tolerate the nastiness that goes on in the Yahoo Groups. They all have come to realize that there is a distinct difference in our groups (mine is a real community, theirs is a madhouse), and they learned to keep their cool. One of them even donated and became a Premium Member.

Forums are often entire new worlds to these Yahoo Group people (at least that was my experience; older demographic though. Yahoo Group = old-fashioned mailing list) so they do realize that they can't bring their trouble to my board.

It wasn't a hassle at all. I don't think you will have the trouble of bringing the wrong people over. And if you do, like I did, then you can whip 'em into shape.