Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Groups.io (Email Groups 2.0)=, Mailing lists for the 10's, i.e. not your dad's mailing list service)

Mark Fletcher's Blog - Introducing Groups.io

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But that doesn’t mean that mailing lists can’t improve. And this is where we get back to the unfinished business. Because email groups (the modern version of mailing lists) have stagnated over the past decade. Yahoo Groups and Google Groups both exude the dank air of benign neglect. Google Groups hasn’t been updated in years, and some of Yahoo’s recent changes have actually made Yahoo Groups worse! And yet, millions of people put up with this uncertainty and neglect, because email groups are still one of the best ways to communicate with groups of people. And I have a plan to make them even better.

So today I’m launching Groups.io in beta, to bring email groups into the 21st Century. At launch, we have many features that those other services don’t have, including:

  • Integration with other services, including: Github, Google Hangouts, Dropbox, Instagram, Facebook Pages, and the ability to import Feeds into your groups.
  • Businesses and organizations can have their own private groups on their own subdomain.
  • Better archive organization, using hashtags.
  • Many more email delivery options.
  • The ability to mute threads or hashtags.
  • Fully searchable archives, including searching within attachments.

One other feature that Groups.io has that Yahoo and Google don’t, is a business model that’s not based on showing ads to you. Public groups are completely free on Groups.io. Private groups and organizations are very reasonably priced.

We’re just starting out; following the tradition of new startups everywhere, we’re in Beta. So, as we squash the inevitable bugs and work to make the system even better (based on your feedback!), all features will be free.

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Groups.io

Why You'll Love GROUPS.IO

Powerful features that make email groups more useful.

Great For Organizations

Groups.io is great for your internal discussion lists. Easily create and manage an organization, which is a collection of private groups, through a dedicated Org home page.

Do More With Integrations

Easily integrate Dropbox, Google Hangouts, Feeds, Facebook, Instagram, Github, Email and soon even more services into your group.

Better Archive Organization With Hashtags

Discussions can have assigned hashtags. Archives can be searched by hashtags, and hashtagged conversations can automatically expire.

Only The Messages You Want

Mute threads and keywords, ensuring you only see the messages you're interested in. Take advantage of better email delivery options, including receiving the first message only in each thread or receiving replies only

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While, like most, I have a love-hate relationship with mailing lists, I do think it's pretty cool seeing this new look at them, updated to today's tech.

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