Hugs all round as Google relaunches Groups service

Google has ditched the old version of its Groups service after revamping the tool to allow users to share an inbox with others.

Mountain View explained:

Imagine you and a few friends are organizing an event for your school and want a single email address to coordinate with vendors, parents, and volunteers.

Members of the group can work together to manage email, assign items to each other, and mark items resolved. This can be a great feature for teams seeking a really simple way to get things done without sharing passwords or losing track.

The company had kept the old version of Google Groups running while it tested out the new features. The Chocolate Factory added that it had improved options for managing groups on its service by adding functions that had only previously been available to biz users of Google Apps.

It has also added moderation tools, such as canned responses for forum posts, and said that Google Groups was now optimised for mobile devices.

Full details are available right this way. ®