<p>I am involved in a school class 50th re-union program. As you can imagine, 100’s of class mates writing emails to each other and the email lists grow exponatially every day when more ppl were found an join the email list. Never mind those photo albums and address list in excel format, either being updated or re-loaded and have to be re-send again and again…</p>
<p>Some one already started a google group and piscaweb album. I have no problem to access them but many internet illiterated classmates have problems. We are looking at alternatives that will do the followings:</p>
<ol>
<li>Privacy to the users, invitations only, central depository of messages and files</li>
<li>Subscribe to a thread or a sub group</li>
<li>Enable to create sub-groups like CC</li>
<li>Easy viewing/upload/download photo albums and files</li>
<li>Password control to sensitive information</li>
<li>Groupware in public domain, no private hosting, yet centralized admin.</li>
</ol>
<p>Your thoughts? BTW, the above is only a wish list, I understand not every thing can have had at the same time.</p>
<p>There’s not much simpler and easier to access than Google+ or Facebook to allow you to limit who sees the information, include photos and doesn’t require hosting, you don’t need to “build” the pages really, and very easy to post and reach messages. It might be less time consuming to simply “educate” the internet illiterate. Perhaps create a flyer/letter and snail mail it to them explaining how to get onto the internet from the library (I’m assuming if they are internet illiterate they don’t have a smartphone or a computer at home) and how to reach your Google+ group or Facebook group. One tip I’ll share…sometimes the computer novices don’t realize that some computers will load up an IE page or a google page. I’ve had people literally try to type a web address into the Google search box so if someone can do screen captures to go alone with your flyer/letter so much the better. It’s possible Classmates or one of the many website based enterprises has the ability to do what you want, but really if people have trouble getting to Google+ or Facebook then good luck getting them to a random website.</p>
<p>My HS reunion, and a music group at S’s school both used a site called classcreator:</p>
<p>[Class</a> Reunion Web Site Creator | Build an amazing high school class web site yourself!](<a href=“Class Reunion Planning | How to Plan a Class Reunion”>Class Reunion Planning | How to Plan a Class Reunion)</p>
<p>It isn’t free ($9 a month, I think) but as an end-user, it was easy to navigate.</p>
<p>I am working with some other parents on a joint graduation party, and created a site in something called wiggio - I wanted it to be free, and a place where we could upload and share files. However, so far they don’t seem to be getting the hang of it. What keeps happening instead is ONE member of the group emails me some ideas/suggestions, and then I have to relay the information to everyone else.</p>
<p>Can’t you just make a private group on Facebook? This is exactly what my Class Reunion organizers did? Send a letter to those who do not have a Facebook account explaining to them exactly how to sign up and join the group. Even those who are computer illiterate will have children or grandchildren who can help them access it.</p>
<p>I think there is lot more in our reunion efforts, most likely we need some thing like Classcreator software. We are from a foreign country located half a world away althogh 50% of the class of 400 are residing in the USA, the other half is spread out all over the world. Just email communication and photo album will not do because logistics have to be implemented to coordinate international travel plans, payment formats, address lists, security issues, currency conversions and even down to food selections. It is a hugh endever with just email and spread sheets.</p>
<p>We had to break down the ppl into sub-groups with group leaders to search for missing classmates. So it is not an easy task. Google, Yahoo and Facebook have problems in a complex situation like that.</p>
<p>MSN and other message boards might be the way to go, something like CC. You can set the membership to invite only so you don’t get spam. They are fairly straight forward, no more difficult than email. You can have boards for various topics, travel, food, whatever. Many places have free sites.</p>