Google Groups launched their beta design to the public last night. The new design change switched from an orange/yellow/white color scheme to a light blue and white color scheme. The new design also comes with some feature additions including:

• Pages. Create and contribute to shared web pages with simple drag, drops, cuts, pastes, and clicks (i.e., no coding).
• Customized look and feel. Select pictures, colors, and styles to express your group’s style.
• Member profiles. See who else is in the group and read their profiles. Personalize your own profile with a photo and other details.
• File sharing. Post documents that anyone in the group can access.
• Easy reading of group discussions. Read easily in a Gmail-style interface.

The official Google press release on the new Google Groups can be found here. Google Blogosoped has the before and after screen shots, the official Google Blog has a post on it leading to the tour of the new Google Groups.

Related Topics: Google: Groups

About The Author: Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here. For more background information on Barry, see his full bio over here. See more articles by Barry Schwartz