If you've only been reading @U2 for the last year or two, you may not know about all the ways to use @U2 and connect with us for your U2 news fix. This guide aims to fix that by making your @U2 user experience as good as it can be!

@U2 News

We have four main distribution points for U2-related news:

@U2 News Database -- This is the permanent record of all important U2 articles we write and find. It's what you're looking at when you see THE NEWS TODAY section on our home page, or the entire News section of the site at http://www.atu2.com/news/. We consider this an archive of all the news that matters most. Anything we post into the main news database is archived for eternity, and you can search for articles all the way back to 1978, when "U2 Malahide" won the talent contest in Limerick.

Bits & Bytes -- This is the section of our home page where we post shorter news items, site announcements & promotions, and so forth. This is for things that are important, but not important enough to go into the news database. With some exceptions, these items remain on the home page for a full week. These are not permanently archived on @U2. But they are archived on the Yahoo Groups site for our news mailing list, which is the next item on our list.

[atu2] News Mailing List -- This is an announcement-only mailing list where U2 fans receive U2 news by email that we send out. Fans cannot reply to the emails we send; it's not for discussion. It's like a dedicated @U2 news alert service. If you're a U2 fan, you really should be on this mailing list. Why? Because this list is where send out alerts about all the items posted to the News Database, all the items posted to Bits & Bytes, and a lot more U2 news that never gets posted on the web site. If we hear some U2 news that's interesting, but not important enough to be posted on the web site, we'll send it out only to the mailing list. Case in point: A couple weeks ago, news spread that Bono would become Godfather to one of Brad Pitt's and Angelina Jolie's kids. Not very important in the grand scheme of things, so we didn't post it anywhere on the web site. But about 5-10 fans did email us the news tip, even though we had already sent it out to our mailing list days earlier. :-) Every once in a great while, we also offer a prize or something cool that we only send out to our mailing list. Like I said, if you're reading this now, you really should subscribe. And, subscribers are also able to browse the list archives, which includes mentions of everything we post to Bits & Bytes.

@U2 Blog -- The blog is our fourth distribution point for U2 news. Our entire staff has access to post on the blog, and we share funny, unique, and interesting stories and discoveries -- stuff that doesn't belong on the main site, but might still be interesting to some U2 fans. We often ask for comments from our blog readers, and have excellent discussions on many blog posts. The things we post to the blog are not sent out to the mailing list. But you can (and should) get alerts about blog content by subscribing to the RSS feed. If you still don't know what RSS is and how to use it, please watch this short video (less than 4 minutes) and then get an account with Bloglines or Google Reader.

We have RSS feeds for both the blog and the main News Database, and should soon have RSS feeds for the @U2 Forum, too. Suh-weet. :-)

Other @U2 Services

@U2 Podcast -- This is our regular audio feature in MP3 format that we generally try to publish monthly in slow times, and more often when U2 is giving us things to talk about. It's not specifically another source for U2 news, although we do turn some of the content on the web site into audio content, too (like the Calendar section, for example). The podcast includes special audio features and roundtable discussions involving some of our staff members.

@U2 Forum -- This is our longstanding message board for fans to share conversations with one another about anything U2-related. It's the best place to chat about the news you see posted here on @U2.

@U2 on Social Networks

@U2 Facebook Group -- Our Facebook group has more than 2,100 members as of this writing. You can post videos and start discussions with other members. We also post links to some of our original columns and articles. Feel free to join the group and get involved.

@U2 on Twitter -- Twitter is like a large, wide-open chat room. Whereas instant messaging is great for 1-to-1 chats, Twitter allows you to chat with anyone else that's online and see their conversations, too. If you see two of your friends chatting, you can jump in and join the conversation. @U2 uses Twitter as a way to distribute news and updates to U2 fans who have chosen to follow us. If you're looking to connect with other U2 fans on Twitter, look at the list of people who are following us and start following them. Then say hello. :-)

@U2 on Flickr -- @U2 has a Flickr account where we post U2 photography from our staffers, as well as some photos sent in by readers. We also have an @U2 Flickr group where almost 5,000 other fans are able to share U2-related photos with each other. We invite you to friend us on Flickr and join the @U2 group, too.

@U2 on YouTube -- We have a rarely-used YouTube account with only a handful of videos, but feel free to friend us anyway. You should also join the @U2 YouTube group, where fans are able to share their own U2-related videos.

Lastly, if you're a user of StumbleUpon or Mixx, feel free to post our articles there and/or vote them up.

Contacting @U2

There are a number of ways to reach us.

@U2 News -- If you have a news tip, send it to news [at] atu2.com. If you'd like to submit a guest article, please read this page to learn how.

@U2 Lyrics -- If you have feedback for Ian, our lyrics guru, send him an email at lyrics [at] atu2.com.

@U2 Calendar -- If you know of an upcoming U2-related event that we may want to list in our Calendar, use this form to tell us about it.

General Feedback/Suggestions -- In the forum, we have one topic dedicated to your feedback and suggestions, and a separate "Help Desk" topic for questions. There are several other topics where you can share feedback on U2 news, lyrics, and so forth.

Contact a Staffer -- We have a Contact Us page where you can meet the staff and email (most of) us directly.

So there you go. Everything you ever wanted to know about @U2, @U2 News and how to get the most out of this site. We strongly encourage you to join the mailing list to get news alerts by email, and learn how to use RSS to receive news from @U2 and all your favorite sites without having to visit each site individually.