The fridge is no more than a private mailing list influenced by social networks.
It's funny, google is trying to create a new social network (buzz, orkut, wave, ...) and they have Google Groups that are real communities (spam appart) that only need some care.
I think the use cases of Buzz and something like Fridge are very dissimilar. Buzz allows you to subscribe to individuals; although when you post it's one->many, fundamentally what it's promoting is a lot of one-one connections. Although Buzz makes it a lot easier to have a group conversation than, say, Twitter (which frankly sucks in a lot of ways, but was first), it's not really a group tool.
I agree about Google Groups getting ignored; it would be nice if the eventual Google Competitor to Fridge was built on an upgrade of Groups. Perhaps one that split off the Usenet part of Google Groups completely; mixing in proprietary Google Groups and Usenet via Google wasn't ever a good idea.
I agree with you, Buzz is dissimilar to Fridge. My point is that Google is trying to copy Facebook on what Facebook does well, this is not a good strategy.
The point of The Fridge is that it is different to Facebook. That's the only way to succeed.
Google has many active Fridges in Groups, it just needs to make the management of Groups much more simple, as the Fridge does.
But, if The Fridge succeeds (I'm not sure about this), then it would be too late for Google, but this is only relevant to Google.
i agree completely and group platforms is one market we are trying to address in that Fridge groups are super easy to create, invite friends, and share/socialize.
one thing we are rolling out soon is gmail and google group contact import.
In my point of view, it should be possible to use a Fridge as a mailing list, I mean, at least, I should be able to answer comments by e-mail. It is already possible to do this on Facebook. This would help to introduce The Fridge to middle aged people who are proficient in email but don't want to "waste time" in learning new technologies. I'm thinking in small businesses.
Comments
The fridge is no more than a private mailing list influenced by social networks.
It's funny, google is trying to create a new social network (buzz, orkut, wave, ...) and they have Google Groups that are real communities (spam appart) that only need some care.
I think the use cases of Buzz and something like Fridge are very dissimilar. Buzz allows you to subscribe to individuals; although when you post it's one->many, fundamentally what it's promoting is a lot of one-one connections. Although Buzz makes it a lot easier to have a group conversation than, say, Twitter (which frankly sucks in a lot of ways, but was first), it's not really a group tool.
I agree about Google Groups getting ignored; it would be nice if the eventual Google Competitor to Fridge was built on an upgrade of Groups. Perhaps one that split off the Usenet part of Google Groups completely; mixing in proprietary Google Groups and Usenet via Google wasn't ever a good idea.
I agree with you, Buzz is dissimilar to Fridge. My point is that Google is trying to copy Facebook on what Facebook does well, this is not a good strategy.
The point of The Fridge is that it is different to Facebook. That's the only way to succeed.
Google has many active Fridges in Groups, it just needs to make the management of Groups much more simple, as the Fridge does.
But, if The Fridge succeeds (I'm not sure about this), then it would be too late for Google, but this is only relevant to Google.
i agree completely and group platforms is one market we are trying to address in that Fridge groups are super easy to create, invite friends, and share/socialize.
one thing we are rolling out soon is gmail and google group contact import.
In my point of view, it should be possible to use a Fridge as a mailing list, I mean, at least, I should be able to answer comments by e-mail. It is already possible to do this on Facebook. This would help to introduce The Fridge to middle aged people who are proficient in email but don't want to "waste time" in learning new technologies. I'm thinking in small businesses.