How do I create a Google Group?

I applaud you trying out different tools to see which work best for you and best match your own needs and approach to managing things. What's good to know is that there are a bunch of good options, free options, to managing a list of email friends and associates. In addition to Google Groups and Yahoo Groups a third very good option is Ning.

I'll set up a group of my own to demonstrate how it's done, but you will need a Google account to get started, then pop over to the Google Groups home page, where you'll see this:

Click on it and you'll see all the basics of setting up a group:

Enter this information and scroll down a bit to where you need to indicate if it's going to be an adult content group or not, then perhaps the single most important choice you'll make regarding the new group: private or public?

Click on "Create my group" and you'll have to prove you're not a spam robot:

Let's keep going... next step is to invite people to join the group:

I already had a circle of friends who told me they wanted to join the group, so I clicked on "Add members directly" near the top, just to see a similar page of input boxes for email addresses and a message to send them. Above that, however, was this warning:

"Note: Please use this feature carefully. Only add people you know. Using this feature for sending unwanted email can result in account deactivation."

Hope that helps you out!