This is indeed a welcome upgrade for Yahoo! and Google groups users who have been wanting to transform their dozens of group memberships into some Facebook-like application. Grouply can do this job.
Issues
[1] I have 26 Yahoo Group memberships and the main issue I have with these is the following: Unless you’re subscribed to individual emails to all of them, which is impractical, the only way to read each of the group’s recent messages is to open tabs or browsers for each. That is, there is no central panel where you can see all of the posts from your various groups. You spend a lot of time doing navigation.
[2] Since your current groups are managed independently, you don’t have a single view of all the members from your groups. To see their profile, you will need to always click on Groups Home and then Members and then either search or browse through the member pages. Iterate this process for all your memberships and for each member you wish to find.
These are main issues addressed by Grouply. But Grouply is much more: it transforms your current Group memberships into an application similar to Facebook. Here is a review on some features.
Grouply Features
[1] The Home Page. What Grouply does is consolidate all these — Yahoo and Google groups — into a single interface. The Home Page features messages from across all of your groups presented in timeline format according to published date and time. There is a Smart Digest feature that allows you to search ALL messages by group, by message type, by tag, or by author. The author part shows you a snapshot on who has been most active in sending messages.
[2] Groups Tab. This tab can be viewed in Condensed or Expanded form. The Expanded form shows the number of new members and new messages. It also shows you the most popular groups in Grouply that you might be interested in joining. There is a function for you to create a new group of join an existing group directly from Grouply.
[3] Messages Tab. In this tab, you can view recent Highlights such as your recently viewed messages, bookmarked messages, searched messages, and posted messages. What’s Hot features most active messages in terms of comments, ratings, bookmarks, and views. You can also created Alerts by search word of interest, such as jobs, or party, or any search word you like.
[4] People Tab. You will see members from all your groups that are in Grouply, also called Grouplies. This is where you can directly interact with them by sending direct messages. You will also see your friends’ other groups and by that you get to know more their social environment.
[5] My Profile Tab. This section allows you to view your friends who are in Grouply, your reading list based on messages that you have bookmarked, viewed, tagged, or starred. You can filter views here as You (showing all your chosen messages); as a Friend; or as a Member of a specific group. The Update Profile function allows you to customize a Playground view where you can add photos, widgets, or videos.
[6] Privacy Settings. You can change settings by managing privacy settings, reviewing friend requests, email subscriptions, alerts and saved messages, managing Yahoo and Google groups. There is a function for viewing Group Statistics that shows you number of group messages and group members who are in Grouply vs those that are not.
This is an application I can continue to use and would recommend to existing Yahoo Group and Google Group users. I have taken key shots of the application and attached them below. (Note: Google Group support coming soon. See image 6.)
Image 1. Grouply Home.
Image 2. Groups Tab.
Image 3. Messages Tab.
Image 4. People Tab.
Image 5. My Profile Tab.
Image 6. Google Group support coming soon.
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Filed under: Web Application | Tagged: Grouply, Grouply Social
