Google Groups 2 Beta Brings Personalization Features

A beta version of an overhauled Google Groups has made its debut among the company's plethora of online services. Since purchasing Deja.com and bringing order to a Usenet archive of over 500 million posts, Google has compiled a list of customer submitted feature requests, with a premium on personalization and notification services.

Google Groups 2 sports a redesigned user interface that enables users to track, sort and mark up favorite topics and conversations.

In fashion with MSN's Communities and Yahoo!'s Groups, Google Groups 2 allows users to design their own Web sites, mailing lists and newsletters. Google promises dynamic conversations that appear to both Usenet and mailing lists within 10 seconds, and which are indexed within 10 minutes.

In addition, the beta permits users to once again create and administer their own newsgroups – a feature that was removed when Google took over the helm of Deja.

David Jeske, Tech Lead for Google Groups 2, told BetaNews that the service's new features were selected based upon user feedback and not in response to competition from MSN and Yahoo!. Jeske would not provide a timeframe for the finalized product, saying only, "It will be finished when we are ready."

Google Groups contains no pop-up ads, but is party to a modified version of the controversial GMail advertising model. Targeted text ads are displayed to customers based upon their search-related intersests.

In GMail AdWords Contextual Advertising software scours through actual e-mail content. Due to its unorthodox advertising model, GMail -- Google's Web mail service -- has drawn the ire of privacy advocates and has consequentially perturbed some officials in US government and European Union.

The carrot on GMail's stick is that the service is the first and only Web mail service to include a whopping 1 GB of storage space.

Google is weighing its options to respond to the concerns of its customers and critics, as GMail continues to be raked through the coals daily by thousands of participating beta testers.

Earlier this week Google revealed a refreshed version of its Blogger service. The new Blogger, a self-publishing tool, offers users more customization and better control over their works.