Monday, 18 October 2010

Facebook Groups are groovy

Facebook replaced their existing groups with 'new Groups' a couple of weeks ago and I've been active user since launch. The new Groups have the same name as their predecessor but they really are quite different and will appeal to a wide variety of users.

The emphasis is now very much on communication, sharing and collaboration amongst members. Previously, the purpose of groups seemed unclear and they sat in a 'no mans land' between (Personal) Profiles and (Business) Pages. Groups are now tools with a clear purpose that can be used by various groups of people.

Interestingly, they could play a part within large companies too although perhaps not just yet. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO Facebook, has joked that Groups will replace Socialcast and stated that they're not an enterprise product - "Yeah, well maybe this will replace Socialcast! [laughs] Not today, this isn’t designed to be an enterprise product." 

But Groups are certainly a lightweight alternative to Socialcast and Yammer and the product shares similar objectives, that is, facilitation of collaboration and communication. However, most corporates are unlikely to trust their data with Facebook and many companies still prevent access to Facebook by their employees. So Socialcast and Yammer need not feel threatened just yet.

It's chief use is likely to be amongst groups of people outside companies that share similar goals and interests and need a central hub to collaborate and communicate. Such groups of people are numerous and could include:
  • hobbyists
  • fans of a sport of celebrity
  • charities
  • sports teams
  • clubs
  • friends
  • family
  • classmates
  • housemates
In short, people with shared interests and a need for communication. For example, I'm in a Group of freelancers who work together on client projects and in a group that kicks around news and opinion on social media and technology. It's like having your own social network.

With Ning now charging for their product it's hard to think of a tool that fulfils the communication and collaborative needs of groups such as these - please let me know if you are aware of any. Within a large company people in departments or with shared interests are linked together with email lists but this rarely happens outside of the corporate firewall, so Facebook appears to have spotted a need that it can fulfil.

There are some great new features in groups:
  • Easy wall updates - no need to select a comment button - just tap the enter key
  • Page rendering - the latest Wall Posts rise to the top of the Page
  • Toolbar - easy access to all the main actions at top of page - Post, Link, Photo, Video, Event, Doc
  • Docs - that's right. Docs in Facebook. Create notes and short docs
  • Group chat - ability to chat with ALL members of the Group at the same time
  • Email updates - send and receive updates using the Group email address
Not so good features:
  • Notifications - after you've joined a Group you may well be bombarded with email notifications. As was the case with Places, Facebook deserve an Overshare badge for the default settings. You can go into settings and change them although it seems to take a few hours for them to come into effect 
  • Formatting - whilst the docs are a great innovation the formatting is limited and hard to work with
My suggestion for an additional feature would be upload of Word documents - this would make Groups more attractive to corporates, a real enterprise product and perhaps a game changer. Facebook facilitates upload of photos and videos so perhaps Word docs will come next?

Groups are quick and easy to set up so if you're one of a group of people who want to communicate, share or collaborate go to http://facebook.com/groups where you can set one up and invite your 'friends' to join.

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