Googlegroups is what we use for our neighborhood watch and also our church. At one time you could add any email address directly to the group, but this has never quite worked correctly. I have a bunch of people who for whatever reason have never been able to access the group or reply to emails from the groups whom I have added but they didn't have @gmail email addresses.
I think we've been using it for about 5 years and the features steadily wither away and it is much less prominently displayed than it once was. I think Google wants to get rid of it in the hopes that everyone get's an apps account and uses Google+ instead.
It's a bit of a shame that users have to sign up for something in order to get out of something. IMHO, they never should have had the direct add option and only allowed adding names via verification from invites. They also should provide instructions in each outbound email for how to unsubscribe or sign in, sign up, etc. even if you're not an Apps user.
Googlegroups is what we use for our neighborhood watch and also our church. At one time you could add any email address directly to the group, but this has never quite worked correctly. I have a bunch of people who for whatever reason have never been able to access the group or reply to emails from the groups whom I have added but they didn't have @gmail email addresses.
I think we've been using it for about 5 years and the features steadily wither away and it is much less prominently displayed than it once was. I think Google wants to get rid of it in the hopes that everyone get's an apps account and uses Google+ instead.
It's a bit of a shame that users have to sign up for something in order to get out of something. IMHO, they never should have had the direct add option and only allowed adding names via verification from invites. They also should provide instructions in each outbound email for how to unsubscribe or sign in, sign up, etc. even if you're not an Apps user.