Yahoo!* Clubs

The purpose of Yahoo! Clubs are to allow people with similar interests or backgrounds to form communities for social and/or intellectual purposes. Each club has a discussion board, chatroom, private chats, pictures uploaded by members, a member list, links, calendar and news.

Why are clubs popular?

It suits the needs or styles of many people. For instance, some people are lurkers and just want to read the discussions. Other people like to chat and will go to the chat room for real time interaction. Some may want to add to the discussions but not chat. Other members may just want a private conversation through Yahoo! Messenger.

The Yahoo! Clubs launch page has a directory of categories where you can browse for a club according to your interest. The major categories for clubs are similar to what you fine here at Suite101. You will find Business, Computers, Entertainment, Writing, Family, Government, Health, Hobbies, Music, Recreation, Religion, Education, Romance, Science,and Regional clubs. If browsing isn't your style, then you can search for a club using a keyword. There are numerous clubs so you may want to use this method.

If you want to join a club, you must have a Yahoo! account. It's free of charge and it only takes a minute to sign up. To add more functionality to your club membership, you may want to download Yahoo! Messenger. By doing this, you can have a private chat with another club member who is online the same time as you. You do have the option of setting your Messenger to not accept chat requests.

When you find a club, you have to go to the corresponding club page and click on the "join" button. Some clubs are private and you have to obtain approval from the founder. You will receive confirmation through your Yahoo! mail that your application has been received. You then reply by email and proceed with the final signup with the club. With clubs that don't require approval, the confirmation is done within minutes through an autoresponder.

If you need help, there is a Yahoo! Clubs Help page.

Before you join a club, you can look and see the number of members and the activity on the discussion board. Some clubs have "recent" discussions that were posted months ago. You can also get an idea of the tone of the club by the discussions. Maybe the posts are too deep or too shallow. One thing, the founder has the ability to remove members who violate the terms and conditions. This is usually for obscenities or personal attacks.

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