Yahoo Groups--or not

[Karen G. Schneider]

A chorus of voices recommended Yahoo Groups. Two days ago I set up a
Yahoo Group, glanced at the chat facility somewhat parenthetically, even
played with it, and then completely flushed this experience from my
brain.  Yes, indeed, in looking at it, for the price, it's pretty
decent.  However, on closer look, unless I'm misinterpreting how it
works, it doesn't meet my requirements for the chat scenario I was
thinking of, because from evaluation it appears to require a Yahoo ID to
access the chat server. (That's right, I didn't spell out requirements,
probably because until looking closer at Yahoo Groups I didn't see what
they were.)  

If at all possible, I don't want to force people to have a Yahoo ID (or
AOL, or...) to use the chat server.  I'd want to allow them to register
with whatever e-mail address, as well as a modicum of personal
information.  I don't want to install anything, and it should be
Web-based, not command line.  I toyed with Blackboard, but it appears to
be best at what it was intended to do--provide chat capabilities for
students in an online class.  Fair enough!

Karen G. "Chatty Cathy" Schneider,   
Coordinator
Librarians' Index to the Internet
http://lii.org        kgs at lii.org
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