Looking to create an online community? Consider CollectiveX
I’ve had a number of conversations over the course of the past week and a half regarding tools or applications that can be used to create online communities or team sites that are functionally robust but easy for the members/participants as well as those administering them. I would generally point people to a list of the usual suspects such as Ning, and LinkedIn largely because they are well known, easy to use, and familiar names to many people. However, a few weeks ago, after completing the first week of the four-year U.S. Chamber of Commerce IOM program and becoming very close to my classmates, I wanted to create a place where my colleagues from the IOM class could collaborate.
As I thought through the aforementioned list of tools and also considered Yahoo! Groups and Google Groups none of them, presented the right mix of functionality and usability that I was looking for from an administrative and end-user perspective. What I really wanted for was a tool or service that allowed me to create a closed community site and combined the threaded discussions of a typical forum, group calendaring, the ability to share photos, links and files, and some aspects of the popular social networking sites in an affordable, semi-customizable and easy-to-use package. A tall order no doubt, but it was with those features in mind that I began my search.
A quick Google search yielded a lot of results, some relevant, some not, but one link looked promising: Groupsites by Collective X which offered “free private or public Groupsite(s) for sharing and keeping your group connected.” Intrigued, I decided to explore the offering a bit further and was really excited with what I had found. The product tour was very revealing and based on my shortlist above I felt relative assured that I had found what I was looking for. The video below effectively provides a really good introduction to the service.
What I found really attractive was the fact that the service is feature rich (it doesn’t have everything that I would want, but it’s not bloated either), and that the basic service is free. The company charges additional fees for additional storage, advertising removal, etc. It even has an option for large organizations allowing them to pay a yearly license fee to create multiple networks. For some additional insight into the product take a look at Mike Arrington’s Tech Crunch write up on the today’s official launch of the Groupsite service and some additional details along with some insightful discussion in the comment threads.
It’s pretty obvious that the service has a number of strengths and very few weaknesses. Yet it might not appeal to all, it will all depend on your needs. However, if you are considering setting up a community site and want a flexible service with strong support then I suggest taking a good look at the CollectiveX Groupsites. I am really happy with the service as are my colleagues who are participating in the community. In closing, here is a look at the site I set-up.
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My name is Dave Sabol and I work at the intersection of technology, online learning and knowledge management. Associated Knowledge is my way of capturing the insight that I gain as I navigate my way through the world of social media and open source technology.
Great post! I am glad to hear that you and you colleagues are enjoying your CollectiveX experience. I will mention this blog post in my roundup press roundup later this evening.
Clarence Wooten
Founder & CEO
CollectiveX.com
Clarence, I normally don’t write about specific products or services but this is something that I am excited about. I am psyched to have found it and even more excited to see how passionate you and your team are about it. Keep up the great work.
This is one of the two tools (Ning being the other one) that a speaker at ASAE recommended when I asked him for good ways to continue the conversation after the meeting was over. I’ll have to go check it out now that I hear you’ve been having a good experience with it so far.
Sue, it really is a great tool. The only limitation that I have noticed is the lack of blogging/journaling functionality. Granted you can add the RSS feed from one or many blogs to feature as headlines (perhaps I will do a write-up later on some of the cooler features that I use and some of the ways I have leveraged the platform to work the way I needed it too), short of that I think it is a great way to “continue the conversation” and I think my site is a great example of that. Let me know if you have any questions, I’d be glad to help you out.
Dave, thanks for finding this service. Glad to see that you are continuing things with your Institute class. Our class that just graduated was looking for an online way to stay in touch and you just provided the tool. I have created our own page and our class is signing up as I write this. Also, you mention the lack of blogs. This is something I saw too but am going to try and integrate another interesting tool I found on the web called a group blog. It is not a team blog but a way to provide a central page for the members of your group to create their own individual blogs and share them with the private group. As I get more information I will be happy to share our experiences with Collective X and the group blog.Thanks again and keep in touch.
TJ, Glad to hear from you and even more happy that the posting was helpful for you. I am thrilled with how well the CollectiveX site working out for us and even more happy with the level of participation we are seeing on the site. To date we have almost 80% participation (20 of 26 joined), and of those who are on the site, most have taken advantage of at least 1 feature. The discussion forum appears to be the most used feature and we have already taken on some pretty interesting topics.
I will be really interested in hearing about how the group blog is working out, and if you can share the details I’d appreciate that as well. While the feature is lacking, I really appreciate the fact that other services/tools can be integrated. I have no doubt that the developers will consider adding the feature in the future. They are really responsive to feedback and feature requests, and seem to be adding new functionality on a weekly basis.
The one service that I have already added is a Meebo room. The room is a real-time chat feature and it allows us to connect with whoever is on the site instantly. It was a breeze to integrate.
Keep me posted and thanks again for stopping by.
Guys,
I’ve been following the comments on this blog post. Just so that you know, we are planing to integrate blogs for users within the next 90 days. It will be part a Message Center that will also include internel mail. We also plan to empower users to add RSS feeds to their profiles in the event that they have an extenal blog that they’d like to integrate.
Integrating the Meebo chat room makes a lot of sense. I’ll have to try that myself to see how it looks.
Clarence
CollectiveX
Just a refresher – things are looking up over at Collective X. Not that they were looking otherwise, if you were wondering. They have recently added a few enhancements that might make the user experience even more rewarding: WYSIWYG feature, a best practices tip sheet, and soon a financial function that many will appreciate. Take a moment to zip over and have a look at what’s new. While there…have a personal look at my group: mondaymover.collectivex.com. Wishing you all the best!