Keeping In Touch

May 31, 2005 6:22 PM

What is the best way to keep in touch a large group of computer using people like a former school classmates?
posted by srboisvert to Human Relations (13 answers total)

I started a blog for my circle of college friends so we could keep in touch after we graduated; you could also try making a Yahoo or Google Group, or an email listserv. Or you could get everyone on one of the social networking sites and make a group there, too.
posted by gramcracker at 6:32 PM on May 31, 2005

Yup. A shared weblog is good. Also try freefilter. That worked for me.
posted by jdroth at 6:41 PM on May 31, 2005

jdroth, what's the level of technical knowledge needed for freefilter? I can't imagine it's good to go right out of the box, but I can't get a solid grasp on it.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 6:53 PM on May 31, 2005

Thefacebook.com can be useful. You can even create groups for your homies and send messages to just them in one fell swoop.
posted by jmd82 at 6:59 PM on May 31, 2005

Depends on the size of the group, and their computer habits. I'm in a group of 8 people from undergrad who keep in touch by email list - we don't have to bother checking a website and get instant reponses to our emails/posts, and they are all private (so we don't have to worry about what we say - recently, everyone just sent their addresses to get a wedding invite). But more people would be unweildy. My current roommate is on a shared bulletin board with her college friends (I don't know if it is private, but I think it is).
posted by jb at 7:54 PM on May 31, 2005

Email and IM work for me. I also have a blog if friends want to keep track of what I'm doing. Probably not the answer you were looking for, but like I said it works for me!
posted by geeky at 8:17 PM on May 31, 2005

Livejournal seems to be great in that regard. It's all about metcalfe's law.

Throw in skype for voice and realtime chat.
posted by Good Brain at 9:00 PM on May 31, 2005

I keep in touch with a lot of people I'd otherwise be in the dark about through livejournal. It requires little to no tech knowledge from everyone involved and does surprisingly well at keeping people informed. The one downside is you can't tell the same story over and over, because everyone's already read it on your livejournal.
posted by drezdn at 10:40 PM on May 31, 2005

A large group? Email. Make a free Yahoo group.

They're easy to manage and they maintain an archive of old messages that you can browse as easily as using any other web page. Set it so only members can see the archives.

Also be sure to set it so no one can join without your approval. Otherwise, spammers join just long enough to send everyone in your group ads.

Make more than one of you an administrator. That way, there's always someone to help if you get sick or otherwise disappear.
posted by pracowity at 11:16 PM on May 31, 2005

If they're former college classmates, I heartily second thefacebook.com.

I've tried a lot of social networking sites, and IMHO it's by far the best for anything college-related.
posted by joshuaconner at 11:27 PM on May 31, 2005

I second the livejournal (well, setting up a community) - a friend of mine started a community for an old college drinking group.

However, it only works well if everyone is already on LJ (I got suckered into keeping a LJ but I previously hadn't). The non-LJ people tend to drop out pretty quickly. Good thing is you can set it to email comments in your entries and replies to your comments so you don't have to manually check LJ all the time.
posted by PurplePorpoise at 12:57 PM on June 1, 2005

Our college (and after) group keeps in touch with a private majordomo email list. IIRC, there's over 250 members right now. It's a bunch of geeks, and LJ is just not their style. There is a LJ community, but it's pretty moribund, with less than a score of members. The email list has been around for at least a decade....
posted by jlkr at 3:36 PM on June 1, 2005

I second third fourth thefacebook.com. In my experience, yahoo groups (as suggested) isn't the most user-friendly thing to use in the world.

You might also want to see if your former college has some mechanism by which you can create a list-serv. I know at my university now, anyone with the college specific .edu e-mail address can fill out a form and will be instantly granted such a list. You can then get people to join - you shouldn't run into any problems if they don't have a .edu address anymore.

Or, if you're looking for a totally low-tech solution - and I know this isn't that helpful - fire up excel and use copy and paste liberally and do it the old fashioned way.
posted by tozturk at 9:55 PM on June 1, 2005