The 0.7 release of the Laconica platform brought a very important feature in the form of group communication. With groups, the admin – the user who created the group – has the ability to control all the details of the group. To communicate with a group, simply add the “bangtag” (! character) in front of the group name and everyone who subscribes to the group will receive the message.
Twhirl's Group on Identi.ca
Sound familiar? Yep, that’s how a hashtag works too. In fact, there are a number of users on the Laconica Dev Request list (subscribe here) that think the way groups work infringes on the way hashtags work. For instance, some users might feel inclined to add “!twhirl” and “#twhirl” to a group, reducing the number of characters you’re left with.
Laconica front-man Evan Prodromou (@evan) rebuts, saying that there are more features that will be implemented to groups that will differentiate it from a hashtag. Upcoming features include tighter membership, higher privacy, and more granular control in general. He argues that while hashtags are created at-will and have no concrete real-estate (so to speak), groups have a home page, a logo, a description, and a location. Groups also have members whereas anyone can contribute to a hashtag.
This post is meant to be a starting block for discussion on your thoughts on the Laconica implementation of groups. If you’re not using Identica, here’s an example of a group and an example of a hashtag. Do you think they got it right? If not, what would you do differently?
Yes, I believe that the Laconica folks did get it right, though it may take a bit of time for users to get accustomed to group etiquette. (A lot of people are using tags and groups interchangeably right now.)
The basic idea, though, is simple.
People can join groups (i.e., subscribe to the feed of that group). The only way to subscribe to a tag is via RSS.
Use a group when you want to send a message to like minded people.
Use a tag when you just want to emphasize the subject of your dent.
Reply · PermalinkI like the new Laconica groups. I think they serve a different need than hashtags. To me, hashtags are just an aid to findability. I can see that it could be useful if hashtag searches also returned dents that included identical group tags though; maybe that will be a future enhancement.
Reply · PermalinkI like the Laconica groups because they allow me to focus more on subjects instead of following many many people and picking out my field of interest.
The way groups are implemented in Laconica is totally a different thing. I think that most hashtags perfectly fit into a micromesaages flow. On the opposite the !groups don't fit as nicely because of being metadate, structure and less conversation content.
I'd have loved the groups to become another structural element to chose from a drop-down list or to write them down in a different form.
Great start with !groups but difficult to use, remember and have them in the right place for a good micromessage flow.
And because of missing rules it is sometimes hard to remember or to choose. Examples: !ham (airport code) or !hamburg (full name) or hh (german car sign), !de (international) or !germany (full name).
But don't miss !q for quotes. Some gems to be found :)
Reply · PermalinkI'm in full agreement Markus on this: identi.ca groups are fantastic but the !tag syntax is not. We need a way to direct messages to a group without any kind of inline tag - similar to the way direct messages work.
Personally I think posts to groups should be made to a group using the status box on that groups web page. For xmpp and sms users we'd keep an inline shortcut such as !groupname but this would be stripped from the notice on posting. When viewing a group message in another timeline a link to the group would appear underneath the notice next to the 'from web' 'in reply to' text.
I've made the suggestion in more detail here http://ur1.ca/1f61 (blogger) and there is an open track ticket on laconica for the idea here http://laconi.ca/trac/ticket/1153
Any thoughts and comments are welcome.
Reply · PermalinkI've had mixed reactions myself to the group function. On one hand, I think it's a cool preview of what's to come with groups and gives us a basic idea of what to expect. On the other hand, I'm a little frustrated that the feature is incomplete and I'll have to go back in later and do more setup.
In terms of syntax, it's nice to be able to send a message directly to a group using the ! character. This allows anyone who uses a third-party client (Twhirl, Twitterrific, etc) to interact directly without being forced to use a web UI. Taking a page from Twitter's book, it's important to realize that more people use clients than use the web interface. Maybe it's different with Identi.ca, but nobody's come out with that data (that I've seen).
As a first crack, I think Evan and his team did an excellent job of integrating it into their current infrastructure. If groups weren't going to be enhanced, I'd like to have seen the !# syntax implemented much like personal tags do (@#tag).
Reply · PermalinkKeep adding the syntax!
The more you ad the more you will alienate the average enterprise user. This is good news for Broadcastr which can understand @username or @groupname however the average user wants the 'facebook wall' approach where you simply click on the group name and post a message on it's wall or page for all the members to read. http://www.broadcastr.net has had this since day one.
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