ABBA On The Web – September 2005

(note: this is the original unedited version of the article. Click here to see the edited version published in the magazine)

In previous editions of ABBA On The Web we’ve visited some of the best ABBA websites, full of information, pictures and music. But that’s not all that the internet has to offer to ABBA fans – there are a myriad of ways that ABBA fans can interact, in mailing lists, newsgroups, bulletin boards and forums.

There are quite literally hundreds of places where ABBA fans can gather, to share news, information and reminiscences about ABBA, or talk about themselves as fans. Due to the diverse nature of ABBA fans, not all on-line services will cater to every taste, and not every forum can meet the needs of every ABBA fan. In this edition of ABBA On The Web, we’ll take a quick look at some of the more popular and active forums.

Most are on free services such as Yahoo! Groups, MSN groups and Google Groups – search for ABBA on these sites and you’ll get dozens of results, most of which are ABBA specific, some of which are general 70s discussion groups, and some of which are completely unrelated to ABBA, the pop group.

Yahoo! Groups can either be assessed via the web, or messages posted to the group can be received via email. MSN and Google Groups work as an online forum only. Both Yahoo! and MSN groups allow a number of other features for members, including facilities to add links, upload images and other files. Google Groups also gives access to other forums, such as newsgroups (more about them later).

However, with this massive oversupply most of these groups have just a few members, with little or no activity.

Mail lists are one of the simplest and most popular forms of fan communication. With mail lists, members post emails which are sent out to every member. There are a number of very active mailing lists. The oldest of all ABBA mail lists is ABBA List, which has been around at various locations since 1993, before ending up as a Yahoo! Group a few years ago. The list is still fairly active after all these years.

The most consistently busy mail list is ABBAMAIL, which has been online since 1997. ABBAMAILers are extremely active, many posting messages to the list daily. Many members have formed strong friendships outside the list, and have regular face-to-face meetings around the world.

Newsgroups are another very early form of communication on the internet. There are two main ABBA newsgroups – alt.music.abba, for sharing information, and alt.binaries.pictures.abba, where members can share images and music files. Both have intermittent activity, with weeks of nothing followed by weeks of high activity.

Bulletin boards and forums are another popular form of communication. The official ABBA site has an active forum, but unfortunately due to some overzealous moderating, and waves of groups of users who treated the forum as their private zone, the forum has degenerated to near irrelevance.

ABBAMAIL also has a fairly active forum, and ABBA Features is another very active forum, if you can get past the juvenile clique mentality that can be encountered there.

Popular music sites such as Rolling Stone and VH1 also have ABBA forums, though these are generally fairly inactive, with just a few posts from people who seem to be just rediscovering ABBA.

Another way of communicating is chat rooms, where fans can chat on-line in real time, like a typed conversation, rather than waiting for responses to email and bulletin board posts. Popularity of chat rooms comes and goes, and at the moment, there are no particular active ABBA chat room.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to on-line communication between ABBA fans. There are dozens, even hundreds of other gathering places for fans to visit. Check out ABBA World for links to them all.

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