Online Support Groups

Lesson 2: Building the Group

In this Lesson, we will break down the where and how of building an online support group. We will look at current hosting options such as with Yahoo! Groups, what a basic online group needs to function, setting membership requirements, deciding on rules, looking at building a separate web site, and the initial size of your group.

Where To Go and What You Need

Places where you can create your group, or find one to join:

• http://groups.yahoo.com
• http://groups.msn.com/
• http://groups.aol.com/
• http://www.smartgroups.com/
• http://web.icq.com/groups/
• http://www.suite101.com
• http://www.topica.com/

Of course, you also have the option of building a web site that would serve as the group. This can be very time consuming and expensive. So before deciding if you want a web site to function as your online support group, let's look at the basics a group should have.

• Message board/Forum or Email
• Chat room
• Owner/Manager contact information
• Area for rules, resources, and associations
• Additional space or areas for group specific information

Now, we will break down the top three places to consider hosting your group with: Yahoo, MSN, and AOL.

Yahoo! Groups:
Public and private group listings
Three membership levels – open, restricted, and closed
Web based and email delivery of all messages
Group only chat room
Links area
Database area – good for rules and associations
Special @yahoogroups.com email address for group owner/managers
Group members personal information can be viewed by all, only members, or group owner/managers
File storage area
Photos, calendar, polls, and promote functions.

MSN Groups:
Public and private group listings, plus ability to rate audience level
Two membership levels – open and restricted
Web based messages – optional email delivery
Chat Room
Personalization of multiple pages

AOL Groups:
Public and private group listings
Three membership levels – open, restricted, and invitation only
Web based and email delivery of messages
AOL only chat room – not open to all members
Photo, events (calendar), members listing, and promote functions

Although from the outside these three options might look alike, there are quite different in functionality. One of AOL's biggest drawbacks is that the chat room is only for AOL Internet access subscribers. Providing access to an alternative chat function could help in over coming this.

MSN has some good benefits in that you can create as many or as few group areas as you want. One of the drawbacks to it is that the group has to be private to keep non-members from viewing the group's information.

Yahoo! has the best functionality, in my opinion. It is easy to use and provides just about everything a group could need. Permission levels can be set so that the public, just members, or only the owner/managers can have access to the different areas of the group. Plus, you can have different access levels for different areas.

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