Is there life on Mars...euh...on groups?

I feel like groups killed the blogs, and blogs was what made Ipernity thrive(in the beginning). I think you are right, groups are more or less just photo pools to be "looked at".

I post to groups because I want to share pictures with a common theme. I do not want to discuss them and I do not think this is necessary, for me it is just o.k. as it is.There are also groups where people are discussing and I do not think that the blogs are dying, for me it is question of an interesting subject. What shoul I comment if someone posts his actual feelings?

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Seen in a user home page (?)

also

I think in a blog we have a main entry where people give their 50 cent.
People joining this discussion in a blog thread talk about this specific topic.

In a group we often have more than 10 discussion threads running parallel.
I find it hard to take part in every discussion thread in a group... so I enjoy blog entries.

But in general I know that it's hard work to manage a group.

I saw that discussions only live in bigger groups but I guess this is the nature of groups...

Hello everybody,
I would agree with ghoermann. I´m a relatively newbie here and just checking out the features. I think a group is good for sharing pics with members with the similar focus.
There are a lot of possibilities to write/discuss (Blogs, photo-comments, Guestbooks etc. ) , so I can´t use all of them - the group discussion for me is the most distant way - I like it more personal like in the blog. That was one reason why I moved from Zoomr to Ipernity.
Greets Hermann

I think it's hard to follow discussions in groups, cause you really have to visit every single group to see if something is new. That's lot of work. On the other hand you have several places to get an overview about latest blog posts, so it#s much easier to get aware of something new where can join.

if group discussions would be handled in the same way, one would have more activity there.

Another point is, that ipernity is still a very small place, but we have got very fast a huge amount of groups, maybe too much to be filled with enough active people. That's a question of time, I think.

The third point is maybe, that the people who are interested in groups are more the people who prefer just the sharing of pictures, so for them, the group pools as places for sharing pictures are quite okay. On the other hand, I got the impression, that the very talkative people are not so much interested in sharing pictures (and therefor not so interested in groups as main places for sharing pictures), but in chatting around with there friends. And why should they use group discussions? It's much easier to use the blog or single pictures for this purpose.

For myself it's pretty much okay, while people using the groups as places for showing their pictures. It makes it much easier to find interesting pictures or new people. And groups are still growing, so no reason to worry at the moment...

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Manganite: there's a menuitem called "Recent activity" under Groups menu.

like this

You can have an overview look at groups you've subscribed to.

I think it needs a better implementation (it is still buggy, in my opinion: I always find new posts which aren't there; perhaps it depends on the fact I'm always online and logged in)) and it needs to be integrated in the user recent activities page

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Seen in my account recent activity (?)

I see! Thanks :)

But maybe one could add something like a short list of the last 5 contributions on the personal homepage.

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Off the top of my head I can name four situations when groups make a perfect means for the Ipernity community.

Generally, it happens when a group is a meeting place for dozens/hundreds of people with a common interest + there are things that have to be worked out in a way.

1. Plant/animal/stone/etc. identification (species etc.) -- experts meet amateurs

2. Camera make helpgroup (Canon, Nikon etc) -- experts meet newbies

3. A platform for organisation of a meeting/meetup

4. Town/City groups - locals and (potential) visitors meeting/discussion platform

I add the Team Ipernity member tag, because I think something you wrote here can be interesting in guiding their decisions.

EDIT: OMG! I can't because I have too many contacts and Team Ipernity is alphabetically over my reach: can someone of you add it for me?

Added it :-) Don't you have a text-box, where you can type in the contact's name?

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yes, but it can only manage a list of 1000 contacts or so and Team Ipernity is over the 1000th place in alphabetical order...

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Done.

It’s like a new toy: If it’s new, you play a lot with it, but if the time goes by, the toy get more and more “boring”, and one day, you put it in a box and store it besides the other toys in your shelf.

Groups are great, and as they were new, everyone “plays” with them, but now the times go by, and groups are not that new, now. Although groups are great toys. But they’re no new toys anymore, therefore i don’t “play groups” that often :)

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Seen in dirk home page (?)

to add something positive: I have the impression that the quality of the pictures in nearly all of my groups is still quite high.

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Hm, I browse the groups regulary - and I like it to compare the photos of others with mines, to get inspirations and to push myself forward. Sometimes I take a photo to put it in a group which I wouldn't take without the group - so I use groups to share photos of a special interests with others who have the same interests.
But mainly I hadn't discuss about it...
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Seen in kiezkicker network (?)

mpph is active ;))

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Seen in mad.melon home page (?)

yes. is one of the few exceptions ;-)
maddie: come play with us on duel!

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rules... rules are błech, you know... :/

As the admin of the group go Sepia! I must admit that I myself find it difficult to find an interesting and appealing theme for a thread.
well, of course there ARE some (which will be opened soon), but the focal point of this -and therefor many groups alike- is to support a certain genre. The existence of blogs here on ipernity allows us to define groups not as the opportunity for sharing thoughts, but another, and to see a group "just" as a resource for inspiration.

Another point is, that the ipernity community is by far not as big as other sharing sites (or so I assume), so it's no wonder to not have a big enough "core" of chatty users to keep most group threads alive and active, including the really significant ones.

And, let's not forget that by having the blog, the groups are kept "clean" of non-constructive -but nonetheless interesting, don't get me wrong- threads, which would make our groups look more crowded.
The conclusion of this perception is that this community indeed IS talkative, and it's slowly expanding into another area. The "communication explosion" couldn't take place because of the need of reference to the group topic.

I guess we just have to wait a while to see what becomes of our groups when ipernity gets better known.

My two cents. :p I treat my ipernity site as my online studio. I know I have wonderful neighbors. Ipernity is like a group of talented fish in a barrel. When I have time I can dangle my hook anywhere and come up with something wonderful! But since i have limited time to view i also have limited time to comment. Sometimes what strikes me most leaves me in a thoughtful enough way that i have to go away and come back again before commenting. I try to make my comments across the board in groups and on individual sites because I truly appreciate everyone's efforts here. Thank you! Josie