What are they up to? This is different to [the current] Google Groups how?

[dash_slot-]

Just looking at this in the context of IPOs, expansion into blogs,
Gmail... is this a beta until they can charge for it (the old ,old
fear)? Or will it remain a non-fee paying, with the introduction of
ads at some point? How much ad revenue is there out there any way - not
exactly a recession proof business model, for what started out as a
free web culture (usenet newsgroups).

[sequential]

"How much ad revenue is there out there any way"

Google has a self service and competitve advertising program which can
be bought into by nearly everyone. They also an affiliate program, so
not only can Google make money from their own traffic, but affiliate
web sites, for the service of sharing their traffic, can also make
money. In short, they have a massive amount of traffic and an equally
massive pool of advertisers.

This is a reasonably time proven, mature business model both on and off
the internet. (Don't get me wrong, many people have failed with this
business model because it's a Catch 22 for a small company to get the
traffic and the advertisers.)

"not exactly a recession proof business model"

While that's not exactly false, there is always advertising, even
during recessions.

--
sequential

[rodb...@gmail.com]

The niceness here is that "discussion forums" (whether netnews,
web-based or mailing list) all kind of merge together into one
searchable database.

Now, if I want to search for bugs in BizTalk, I can do one search which
will scan mailing lists and froups alike.

If they just add a mail-archive.com style "subscribe me to a list, and
I'll archive it" email address, this'd be perfick.

Rod.

[rodb...@gmail.com]