I am looking for a place that will act as our online "home base" so family members in four cities can privately connect/collaborate/share photos, notes, docs, chat, instant messaging, all in the same place using the same service. So far, I am looking into groupee.com, myspace.com, grouper.com, groove.net, strongspace.com. Any recommendations, other suggestions? Thanks.

NeedKarma

Before the dot.com bust there were tons of free services on the web for collaboration but now the free stuff is mostly gone. If all your members are registered with Yahoo it can offer all those functions I believe: Calendar, Briefcase, Groups, Messenger, etc.

ScottGem

Recently, several places like Myspace and others have grown up as advertising revenue has increased, making it possible to offer such a free service. However, from what I've been able to see of them, they tend mostly to be the home of teens. As parents have moved away from AOL for a variety of reasons, mostly related to its costs. These places have gotten the attention of the the many who used to use AOL as their community center.

I would consider using Yahoo for a variety of reasons. Their Yahoo Groups site is free and provides just about all the features you ask for. Message boards, chat, file transfer and storage, photo gallery, calendar and more. In addition, Yahoo has one of the 4 major Instant Messaging groups. Yahoo groups can be unlisted and by invitation only to keep it private.

Voyageman

Thanks. I found a great site www.backpackit.com. Also considered www.basecamp.com and www.jot.com

jduke44

Myfamily.com is another site my wife's family is involved in. Sounds like you have alot of different sites to choose from. Good luck.

RickJ

Another angle - that required a bit more money and effort, but well worth it: You can do exactly as you please as far as design and layout go - and don't have to have all the advertisments on your site:

A domain will cost $30 for 5 years (I use GoDaddy

A good host (I use Lunarpages ) runs $95 for a year.

Then make the site yourself. Dreamweaver Academic verision is just $100 - and pretty easy to learn.

fredg

Hi,
Another suggestion would be to become the founder of a Yahoo Group.
You can give the Group a name, then invite members to join, only those you want to join.
As moderator, you can set it up so no one can join, unless you invite them. Also, security is very good, so no one can search your Group, or even view it, unless you give them permission to be a member. You can do message posts anytime, set it up to send an email to that member that they have a message. Also, can post photos, start your own photo pages, etc.
Best wishes,
fredg
PS; It's all free.

NeedKarma

Dude, two reponses in this thread already said that.
You drinking again?

RickJ

I give a big thumbs down to Yahoo Groups. It's a klutzy format - and nothing nearly like a website...or even a typical forum (like this one) for that matter.

With a website, you could have a separate page for every family - or every city - or however else you'd like to organize it.

I say your 1st best option is Googling for "free website hosting" OR "free websites", and see if you like what the various companies offer.

If you find them too limiting - or that they have too many ads on them, then consider doing it yourself, as I suggested earlier.

A third option is to have someone do the site for you. You'd have the same expense of about $120 per year for the domain and host, plus whatever the person would charge to build and maintain it.