Yahoo groups or another, for emerg website for a co.?

I'm reviewing a DRP (disaster recovery plan). The company wants to use
Yahoo groups for their emergency website. Few questions for the forum:

1. When do yahoo accounts expire (i can ask Yahoo but figured here
first)
2. is there any other minus to using Yahoo groups?

I wish there was an alternative that didn't require a username be
JoeShmo@yahoo.com
Are there alternative services besides Yahoo Groups that work well for
a forum on the web for company employees to communicate in a
threaded-message type format (real-time chat is not important) ?

Thanks
Jason Shohet

In article <1131466478.118331.20960@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups. com>,
<jasonshohet@gmail.com> wrote:
:Are there alternative services besides Yahoo Groups that work well for
:a forum on the web for company employees to communicate in a
:threaded-message type format (real-time chat is not important) ?

Perhaps a "closed" google group? Perhaps a nntp ("news") based
system? Perhaps a blog?
--
All is vanity. -- Ecclesiastes

Interesting. (Does Google have 'closed' google groups ? )
The problem they have is the account names. They don't want it to be
xxx@yahoo.com, or yyy@gmail.com. They want to use their account
names from their own domain (even though its off the domain). E.g., My
account username is jshohet.

So authentication on the outsourced emerg. website would be:

jshohet
(and my password that i set up initially)

The problem with yahoo groups is that they require the Yahoo email
thing... the users are not going to remember ...@yahoo.com if they
don't use it it 2 years, and then suddenly there's a disaster and they
are staring at a screen asking for username & pwd :)

Thanks

In article <1131468273.818603.29110@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups. com>,
<jasonshohet@gmail.com> wrote:

:Interesting. (Does Google have 'closed' google groups ? )

Yes.

http://groups.google.ca/intl/en/goog...our/index.html

Our group management features let you decide your group's:
o Privacy Setting Your group is open to the public or viewable
only to members.

:The problem they have is the account names. They don't want it to be
:xxx@yahoo.com, or yyy@gmail.com. They want to use their account
:names from their own domain (even though its off the domain). E.g., My
:account username is jshohet.

https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount

"Required information for Google account

Your current email addresss: ____________
e.g. myname@example.com. This will be your username and sign-in.


I haven't created a google account myself, so I do not know the exact
process. Plausibly they do the same thing that a number of other
providers do, which is to send a confirmation email to the given
address that provides a URL that one must click on in order to
finish the process (so that one's email address cannot be "slammed"
into a google account.)

I notice that google also has "orkut" https://www.orkut.com

orkut is unique, because it's an organically growing network of
trusted friends. That way we won't grow too large, too quickly and
everyone will have at least one person to vouch for them.

If you know someone who is a member of orkut, that person can
invite you to join as well. If you don't know an orkut member, wait
a bit and most likely you soon will.
--
Many food scientists have reported chocolate to be the single most
craved food. -- Northwestern University, 2001