Dear Yahoo! Groups Moderators and Users:

I am a freelance writer.  I am currently doing research for an article about online/virtual communities.

Part of my research involves the relevancy to Yahoo! Groups users and moderators of the new product known as Grouply (http://grouply.com).  I have a Yahoo! Group dedicated to the topic of this research at:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/vcrgyg/
You may join it if you wish to participate in my research, or just to provide comments.

I am interested in knowing how far Grouply has progressed in awareness and acceptance among Yahoo! Groups users and moderators, and how it influences their usage of Yahoo! Groups.  To help ascertain this, I have created an online survey using surveymonkey.com.  I invite you to participate in that survey at:

htt p://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=mgZGrf1PYFxAK1_2fkrovsgg_3d_3d

or
http://tinyurl.com/3x2ncv

SurveyMonkey is a safe product.  My survey does not ask you to identify yourself or to provide any personal information.  It is a very simple survey with only a handful of questions.  If you run a web search on "surveymonkey" you will find many professional articles about it as a good product.

If you have any questions, feel free to reply to this message or write to me at:
vcrgyg-owner@yahoogroups.com

or join my "Virtual Community Research Grouply Yahoo Groups" (VCRGYG) group at:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/vcrgyg/

and post your comments or questions there.

If you are not familiar with Grouply, here's a very basic summary of what it is, and how it works:

When a member of your Yahoo! Group joins Grouply, they provide Grouply with their Yahoo ID and password.  Grouply then uses that access to retrieve a duplicate of your group's message archive, to then make it available to other members of your group who may also subscribe to Grouply.  Their interface is more of a social networking environment than Yahoo! Groups.  Among a variety of other features, they offer a thing called a "Smart Digest," one email message containing a summary digest of the postings from all groups where the Grouply subscriber holds membership.  I am not endorsing or recommending Grouply, only briefly summarizing what it is about.

Grouply provides Yahoo! Groups moderators with the ability to disable Grouply access to their groups.  For more information about that, see :
http://www.grouply.com/owner_controls.php?r=1

There are a variety of Yahoo! Groups dedicated to the topic of Grouply.  The one most highly focused exclusively on Grouply issues seems to be the one called "Grouply Improvements," at:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/grouplyimprovements/

Grouply CEO Mark Robins and co-founder Rich Reimer participate there regularly, so it is a good place to get information and ask questions.

The Links page on my VCRGYG group provides some additional information resources.

Thanks again for your time and I hope you will participate in the survey at:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=mgZGrf1PYFxAK1_2fkrovsgg_3d_3d

or
http://tinyurl.com/3x2ncv