Ok, you have a Facebook, Twitter and Orkut accounts, but I have my Yahoo groups with me!
In my opinion, Yahoo group is potentially better form of virtual connection. Not much of a headache where there is control features to make your life easy. Yahoo group will not spy on you like many social websites do on you.
The Yahoo Group idea is simple. You get connected to similar interested people through internet, i.e. via emails and a common website. You can join a Yahoo group which matches your interest by subscribing to it by free but by only submitting your email id. If the group moderator permits you to join, you can become a member. Then you can post your views and share your opinion to the group. Receive their feedbacks and mails. You want to be in the leader's post? No worries, you can form one or more Yahoo groups and can control it. What you need to have is a yahoo email account!
When I first heard the idea from a friend some 8 years back, I was overwhelmed by the possiblities and immediately joined some groups, like pen friends etc. I chose to receive the mails individually and used to receive mails from many people daily. For some time it was fun. Later however I thought and choose, 'oh no, I will check it later in the group site'. From that day, no mails, but I can use all other features and I can read the group mails in the group site! If I want, I can reactivate the individual mail option. Also there is options like to get mails on daily, weekly basis as well. I thought this is pretty cool!
We had some personal friends from our college days who were keeping high personal bond but were settled in different part of the world. We had a lot of areas of common interest and any special news for one is news for everybody. I thought, why don't we use thisYahoo Group potential to this group and immediately form one. And oh boy, it is working! Ever since I am a moderator for a Yahoo group! I inserted a picture to represent our group and posted many of our college day photos to it. Now it is nostalgic!
A moderator can control the admission of members and can supervise the mails which are going to be sent to the group members. The group owner is responsible for maintaining the group and that is only a genuine feature to control the groups to the ethics of community living.
Many of the members had Yahoo mail ids and I added them with that. Then, few didn't have Yahoo ids. Never mind, they too can be joined as members but few features they cannot view, like the photo album, member profile etc. Many preferred to remain that way which I said no problem where few others created yahoo ids to make best of features. We can store photos upto 100 GB and can organise as album /thumbnail structure, file storages upto 100 MB, any format. We can see the member profiles and email ids which mean even if your email ids are hacked there is an alternative source to find your friend email ids.
Busy to moderate the group? You can assign the ownership to another member with his/her permission. You want to keep the ownership but busy to moderate all messages? You can select moderators from the group.
The moderator can add members but with their permission which they have to say yes to an invitation. Festival wishes, Birthday wishes, thoughts, yahoo groups has become our communal activity outside the professional life. Even today, it is an easy way of communication and sharing of news and ideas. Message archives, polls, calendar announcements, files, photos, database functions and bookmarks, there are many we can explore around.
There are around 115 million yahoo group members around the world and 10 million yahoo groups when the year 2010 ended. There are hundred of groups for interests of our own. You can search for various groups in yahoo group home page. Additionally, there are classified groups like: Animals, Business & Finance, Computers & Internet, Cultures & Community, Entertainment & Arts, Family & Home, Games, Government & Politics, Health & Wellness, Hoobies & Crafts, Music, Recreation & Sports, Regional, Religion & Beliefs, Romance & Relationships, Schools & Education and Science. Do you think you will not find an interesting group there? Oh, I found some Mouthshut groups as well there but not controlled...so it turns to be a place of advertisement space for spams...I don't recommend it that way and that is why I keep it moderated always...
The only worry I had with the group website is its occasional changes. Thank god, they are listening to groups and reverting many minus changes.
I think Yahoo group is a better option than Orkut and a creative option than Facebook and Twitter considering the links we are creating and friends we are making on an intellectual level. Whatever may be your hobby and interest, there is a yahoo group where you can join and interact with similar minded people. You can either remain active or can take a rest when busy times are ahead. What more you want from an intellectual or fun interacting community?
Are you a member of a yahoo group? If not, why not become one? Or create one group for your friends? I do recommend it!
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