Moving from List Serv software to social networking platform?

[Kimberly Sterling]

We have a moderately successful technical question list serve that's pretty old running on ugly old Lyris software. It seems to be a good basis to build a community to give them the ability to post in HTML, etc. We looked at Andy Steggles' software to do this and it was quite impressive. Has anyone else moved an old list serve to social network? Did you use something proprietary or an open platform like this one?

[Lynn Morton]

I haven't moved anything over, but I was actually going to recommend Higher Logic (which is who Andy uses). Their eGroups are a really great software. Their biggest advantage is that the eGroups are sent via email, which makes it super easy for the user.

If you want to go the free route, I think CollectiveX is a great start. They send email digests of activity, which lets your members decide how frequently they want to know what happens on the network. YAP (look on the left on the main page) is an excellent example of a working social network and what features CollectiveX offers. They have discussions and group blogs and best of all, it's free!

I would say start free, test for awhile (like at least a year or 2), see where it goes and then see whether or not it's right for you to invest in in-house software.

[Kimberly Sterling]

Thanks Lynn. This is all very interesting. Is there a reason you like CollectiveX over Ning for this usage? Yap looks really similar to this site to me, except that its focus is slightly broader?

[Lynn Morton]

Ning works really well for communication between a single entity and a group (think a fan club for a rock star), it works here for our purposes since there is engagement but a lot of it is learning/reading/lurking. I think it has to do with the design of the site itself. CollectiveX seems to be more intuitive and puts the tools for engagement right in front of you, you can't miss them. They also send the digests, which puts it in your hands again. With Ning you can find out the latest activity via RSS feeds in a reader, but readers aren't mainstream yet. CollectiveX seems to have an inbound sort of marketing strategy, driving you to the site, Ning seems to me to be a bit more come to me. Not that Ning isn't great, it is, I just think that since Associations need to capitalize on engagement more than anything, that CollectiveX would serve it better, but I also think that depends on the association.

[Peggy Hoffman]

Having used both, I'd vote for CollectiveX largely because it's a bit m ore user friendly. Plus they have a great, robust users group in which group managers help each other. I like that they just added subgroups too.