Free Public Groups and Private Group Members

2011 Feb 22 22:29 UTC

You can start unlimited free public email groups with OnlineGroups.Net.
Currently, private groups are free, too, but we do plan to charge for
members of private groups, at some stage. Pricing is on the Start a Site
page.
   http://onlinegroups.net/sites/

You can start unlimited public, private or secret groups on your site
for free. With public groups, you can have as many members and posts as
you like, for free. With private groups, when we introduce charging, we
will charge for the number of site members who can access a private
group. Each private group member can access as many private groups as
you invite them to join.

I'll explain how public and private groups work.

To start a group, log in and visit the home page of your site. On the
home page, you will see a large "Start a Group" button. You will be
asked to choose a name, ID and "real life group" for your group, to make
your groups a  discussion or announcement group, and to choose a privacy
level.

There are three levels of privacy for online groups.

   Public Group — anyone can see posts, anyone can join.

   Private Group — only members can see posts, joining is by
   invitation or request. Anyone can see that the group
   exists.

   Secret Group — only  members can see posts, joining is by
   invitation only. Only members can see that the group
   exists. (The secret group option is not available when
   starting a group, but you can make a group secret after
   it is started.)

Here are some examples of how typical sites could work.

   Free Public Site
   =================

   Three public discussion groups. One for everyone
   (500 members), and two for subgroups (200 and
   100 members respectively) with special interests.

   Site with up to 100 Private Group Members
   =========================================

   Three public discussion groups. One for everyone
   (500 members), and two for subgroups (200 and 100
   members respectively) with special interests.

   Seven private groups, each with between 10 and 60
   members. 80 site members in total have access to one
   or more private group.

I hope this clarifies things. Please feel free to reply if you have
questions.