Facebook Pages & Groups
I am researching the difference between "Pages" and "Groups" on Facebook. From what I have read so far, Facebook Groups are the closest thing on the Internet to what we know as "Communities" on Google+.
If anyone knows of options other than Facebook Groups that are similar to G+ communities, please supply me with links to the websites that offer those options. I would greatly appreciate it!
Thank you,
"Musical One"
https://www.lifewire.com/facebook-groups-4103720
Friendica and Hubzilla both offer "Forums" which are basically groups. The downside is that, despite the fact that both of those platforms are part of the Fediverse, only users on the particular platform seem to be able to make direct posts to a forum. (They can, however, read and comment on other users' posts.) Until that hurdle is overcome, it's by no means a perfect replacement, but it's there.
ReplyDeleteTrevor Schadt Thank you for the info. about Friendica and Hubzilla's Forums. I will check them out.
ReplyDeleteMusical One There are apparently also Groups on MeWe, but since I don't have an account there I can't really speak to them. Seeing how much talk they get around here, though, I would assume they are pretty good.
ReplyDeleteTrevor Schadt
ReplyDeleteMany of my G+ friends have said they are switching to MeWe. I am concerned that there wouldn't be enough storage there for me (and my communities?). I may open an account there just to experiment with it.
FB Groups work quite well, and can be customized to allow new members to be invited/vetted by the Group owner(s) or open to anyone who wants to join. It's not quite as easy to categorize posts as it is here, but hashtags work OK. I think they'd make decent substitutes for what we do in Communities here, but the problem is going to be getting people who don't already use FB to sign up; I know a lot of people on the Plus who've said frankly that they'll go anywhere but there.
ReplyDeleteI've been using FB since long before G+ existed, mostly to chat with old friends, but am picking up an increasing number of G+ refugees there. I wouldn't be surprised if at least some of the photo groups migrate over there, in part because photos display almost as well there as they do here, and can be shared publicly, to your entire Friends list, to Groups or to specific individuals.
One problem with Facebook Groups is that the content search facilities are rather weak. It does not lose content, but if you have more than trivial activity then you will have a difficult time finding specific content again later, other than by scrolling for extended periods.
ReplyDeleteGreetings, I can say that MeWe is very similar to facebook but just way smaller. They claim about 10,000 people a day are joining and maybe so, but the platform is slow moving but functions well. You get 8Gb's of data to start which is around 8 to 10,000 posts according to them and it would be 4.99 for 50 Gb's after that. There is no advertising, and selling your info, they make money from the business side of MeWe and other stuff like emjoie's. It is well worth checking out. I have a group there for about a week and there is some action. No categories as of yet but you can create hash tags as categories. It will never replace G+ but has potential. But here is the big twist!! For some reason, I have a feeling that G+ will re-emerge after they shut it down and relocate to YouTube and make one big social media hub that will rule all the others. We all have channels there and most don't know it. The next time you go to YouTube, click on your profile photo. A menu will open and click on 'My Channel'. from there you have options for video and also discussion!! click on discussion and it seems you are able to post text. All they need to do is add photo's and maybe collections and BOOM!! Were Back!!😁👍
ReplyDeleteWalter Roberson it’s almost exactly like how the search works, or doesn’t work indeed, in G+ Communities. It’s absolutely frustrating. Try to find something, anything, in a large, active G+ community by using the search function. Good luck with that! 🤦🏽♂️
ReplyDeleteEric Bright See support.google.com - Search in Google+ - Computer - Google+ Help for the advanced search directives in G+, which permit you to narrow by community, by poster, by time range.
ReplyDeleteWalter Roberson thank you for the link. I didn’t know most of those tricks. Nevertheless, I never searched for a particular ID, name, or things mentioned in that help page. I always had a few keywords, usually verbatim to what I needed to find the full text for, and rarely, if at all, could I ever find any useful result in the community searches. Perhaps my fault, or my higher expectations of modern searches in 2018.
ReplyDeleteFacebook Groups suck, primarily because it allows anyone to add random people to an open group, without consent. There are too many random idiots on it anyway, and the photo "tagging" feature has descended into madness, especially with FB trying to make the user's life an open book to be enjoyed by marketers and stalkers.
ReplyDeleteDonald Schaefer I'm going to give your Youtube suggestion a try. It wouldn't hurt, and I already have the account. I really like the idea. I'm actually holding out hope that they configure G+ into something next year - possibly a communities-based plugin part of Youtube as you've predicted. I'll miss the smaller, more meaningful communities here though.
ReplyDeleteNishit Dave You can set an FB group to Moderator approved for the membership.
ReplyDeleteJulian Bond I know, but that's too much work.
ReplyDeleteMusical One the MeWe Groups allow each to be configured whether anyone can post or just the admins. You can have one admin (yourself) or add others. You can set role levels and even tailor those. Only thing it does not have (and is apparently coming) is public visibility from outside of MeWe for public groups. I'm banking on that being a reality soon.
ReplyDelete