Brainstorming Features
Summary
- There are 5 posts — by 4 authors — in this topic.
- Latest post made by Michael JasonSmith at 2010 Apr 20 05:30 UTC
I've had some non-E-Democracy related opportunities to size up some competing group tools and encourage the GroupServer crowd to check out the experience of starting up a group on tools like Google Groups, GroupSite, and Ning. A few reflections: 1. Ning - If you turn off lots of features you cam make this pretty simple. Biggest problem their e-mail alerts stink and force you to the site even to read the new content. If like Facebook, they come to allow full-text e-mail alerts and replies via e-mail, watch out. 2. Google Groups - I can see why YahooGroups seems to be languishing. I really like how GoogleGroups allows you to change the e-mail delivery settings for people in semi-bulk operations,. (Mailman did this as well.) We can't teach all people to fish, so this really stands out as a must have. Also clarifying "Bouncing" from "Outstanding Invites" would bring us in line with the industry standard. 3. GroupSite - I about pulled the trigger for the community gardening group I was setting up (I was only provided 40 e-mail addresses) when they claimed listserv like features, but it appears that all of the e-mail options are delivery not posting. In terms of Features/experience - holy cow. The little tutorial videos are nice and they are probably giving GoLightly a run for their money. 4. Drupal and E-mail - The best Drupal site at using e-mail is http://Kabissa.org and local to me folks like http://newtactics.org have used http://www.advantagelabs.com/drupal_mailing_solutions to deliver email hooks (but recent Drupal upgrades mean they need to upgrade the Advantage Lab tools which I guess doesn't have funding). Steven Clift - http://stevenclift.com Executive Director - http://E-Democracy.Org Follow me - http://twitter.com/democracy New Tel: +1.612.234.7072
Hi Steve, Sites like Ning and GroupSite will not enable posting via email, as long as they have ad-based revenue models. I agree that GroupServer should use Google Groups as a benchmark for enabling group collaboration with email, although not necessarily for its features. We know that "you can't out-code Google", but there are still some opportunities for GroupServer to differentiate on features, for example the ability to create sites. Drupal is clearly a strong competitor for building sites, but lacks, as far as I am aware, a decent mailing list manager. Clearly, GroupServer is no competition for Drupal as a CMS. Maaaybe one day, some integration with Plone, Django or another python-based framework may redress this balance. For now, however, I think GroupServer's best option is to focus on doing what it does best, really really well: being the open source mailing list manager with a decent web interface. There is, as yet, no other.
Dan
Ning is now going to start charging. I guess a million often dead but free sites can't generate enough ad revenue for 100 staff members. I'll bet they now add e-mail publishing. I noticed this site - http://www.bigtent.com - in one of the comments on the articles about the Ning shift away from free. BigTent seems to support e-mail posting. Interesting joining process. Too many questions - but very "trusted" host friendly. I can tell you that in our strategic planning review just about every "expert" we spoke to said go with Facebook, Twitter, X tool, etc. or become tool agnostic. I know that e-mail publishing works with GroupServer, but I also know that we must make our Issues Forums work "everywhere where people are online" because the people closest to promoting our reputation in the right circles don't see us in a bright light today. So, on my short list of "big" needs are: 1. Via Facebook - Our Pages are a start, but we will need an app that allows full participation, Facebook Connect probably needed too so new posts can optionally be posted to Walls 2. Via iPhone/Android - We need either a simple app that pulls in the feeds from selected groups and/or a... 3. Mobile Web - Something that helps someone get to the groups they follow efficiently so they can read and respond 4. Via Twitter - We've started following options with TwitterFeed, but we also need to add Twitter links to the profile and let people choose to Tweet when they post Steven Clift - http://stevenclift.com Executive Director - http://E-Democracy.Org Follow me - http://twitter.com/democracy New Tel: +1.612.234.7072
On Sun, Apr 18, 2010 at 6:40 PM, Dan Randow <email obscured>> wrote: > > Hi Steve, > > Sites like Ning and GroupSite will not enable posting via email, as long > as they have ad-based revenue models. > > I agree that GroupServer should use Google Groups as a benchmark for > enabling group collaboration with email, although not necessarily for > its features. We know that "you can't out-code Google", but there are > still some opportunities for GroupServer to differentiate on features, > for example the ability to create sites. > > Drupal is clearly a strong competitor for building sites, but lacks, as > far as I am aware, a decent mailing list manager. Clearly, GroupServer > is no competition for Drupal as a CMS. Maaaybe one day, some integration > with Plone, Django or another python-based framework may redress this > balance. > > For now, however, I think GroupServer's best option is to focus on doing > what it does best, really really well: being the open source mailing > list manager with a decent web interface. There is, as yet, no other. > > Dan > > ----------------------------------------- > Full text of this topic in GroupServer Development: > http://groupserver.org/r/topic/BMi2lm1dDDhhKJb0ztC8k > > To leave GroupServer Development, email > <email obscured>?Subject=unsubscribe > > Start your own free groups and site with > OnlineGroups.Net http://onlinegroups.net > > Host your own online groups site with > GroupServer http://groupserver.org >
On 20/04/10 12:52, Steven Clift wrote: > 1. Via Facebook - Our Pages are a start, but we will need an app that > allows full participation, Facebook Connect probably needed too so new > posts can optionally be posted to Walls > I'm actually quite interested in how this might work. Do you think you might write something up in a new topic? Posting to your wall would probably be the easiest step -- it would be interesting in that it would potentially suck new participants in if we finished with a link to the post on the site. Are you thinking that the wall would have the full post, a summary, or just a 'I've made a new post at XXX site, come check it __out__.' > 2. Via iPhone/Android - We need either a simple app that pulls in the > feeds from selected groups and/or a... > Being a big Android user myself -- I find myself *not* using specific apps for anything that could be solved with my podcatcher/RSS reader. How are you thinking this might work? Any excuse to write something for Android is a good excuse ;) Again, something for another topic so we can track it maybe? > 3. Mobile Web - Something that helps someone get to the groups they > follow efficiently so they can read and respond > This I'm all for -- Mike has done an excellent job with the CSS -- and the sites look great on my Android, but something very cut down to really improve navigation on a mobile phone would be extremely helpful. > 4. Via Twitter - We've started following options with TwitterFeed, but > we also need to add Twitter links to the profile and let people choose > to Tweet when they post > I'm most certainly in favor of this. I'd bump this to the top of the list even, because I actually think this one might be the simplest (followed probably by the facebook posting). Though if people have twitter integrated with facebook they'd get two-for-one anyway :)
--Richard
Could you also start a topic about mobile web, please Steve? “Mobile” covers a huge ground: from dedicated Apple iPod applications that talk to Websites, through netbooks, tablets, cellphones that have high-resolution displays, all the way down to mobile phones that run Opera Mini.
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