As an engineering student in India, Srihari Yamanoor knew he wanted to get a graduate degree in the United States to expand the career opportunities available to him, especially in North America and Europe. Over the course of many months, Srihari struggled through the GRE test, graduate school applications, and the visa process. It all paid off – Srihari got into Stanford and earned two graduate degrees in engineering. But he realized that the process could have been much easier and less stressful if he had some advice and mentoring along the way.

So Srihari created the GRE-Success Yahoo! Group to help people who want to earn a graduate degree in North America and Europe. GRE-Success now has over 2,300 members and continues to grow quickly.

While the Yahoo! Group offered a forum for members to ask specific questions, it did not provide an overview of the entire process. So Srihari started a wiki and created pages covering such topics as the GRE structure, the Statement of Purpose on applications, and how to get a credit card. But having two different systems proved confusing and burdensome. Many users weren’t aware of the wiki and asked questions already answered there. Furthermore, Srihari had to maintain access controls in both places.

“I realized that the Yahoo! Group alone could not meet the needs of the group, but there was no way to migrate the group to another system without losing hundreds of members,” said Srihari. “Our Grouply website integrates the wiki and the Yahoo! Group in one place. Users can find everything they need, and I have only one set of access controls to manage. In addition, Grouply provides useful statistics that help me manage the group. For example, Grouply tells me which content is most widely read so I can focus on the areas of greatest interest to my members.”

The “green movement” is many things to many people: a philosophy, a political campaign, technologies.  To Eric Snyder, it is a way of life – i.e., the small choices in his everyday life that reduce any negative impact that his lifestyle has on the planet.  For instance to reduce landfill waste, Eric often gives away or “freecycles” perfectly usable items (e.g., TVs, chairs, board games) that he no longer wants to other people rather than throwing them away.

To help others do this in his hometown of Ottawa, Canada, Eric created a FullCircles Ottawa group on Yahoo Groups.  People post messages about items they no longer want, and other members “claim” them.  FullCircles Ottawa has 9500 members who have “rescued” tens of thousands items from the landfills.

At first, Eric was happy to have the Yahoo Group deliver the messages that facilitated the exchange of the “re-used” item.  But the Yahoo Group no longer meets all of his needs.  To increase the impact of the group, he realized that he needed to educate people more about freecycling and sustainable lifestyles.  He also found that he spent too much time “coaching” members to include the right information in each message.

“I wanted to embed videos and other resources about green lifestyles on my Yahoo Group, but I couldn’t.” says Eric Snyder, founder of FullCircles Ottawa.  “With Grouply, it literally took seconds to add new pages and embed videos throughout.  The best part is that Grouply required no migration from my Yahoo Group – it just automatically integrated it.  With other systems, I would have to leave Yahoo Groups and lose thousands of members in the process.”

In addition, the Grouply website provides message templates that ensure that members include the right information when they post.  Eric also uses the group analytics in Grouply to monitor membership and increase group activity.