I have been procrastinating writing about the new round of funding for Grou.ps, primarily since it had already been widely reported. Then, Fred’s post from this morning prompted me to finally post about both the round, and the other critical…

if you have “anything” to compete with da killa you let me know. idiot.

yes Dave, there domain is a death sentence.

How does Wordpress make money ? Perhaps we take that clue from Wordpress. Wordpress.com gives away source code, doesn’t put app but yet still maintain its business. It is building a brand which can leverage on partnership etc… and the strong brand attract investment.

Maybe grou.ps is adopting the same strategy.

A few big names already use the site as their home and customize it as such to make it look as if it is a stand alone site (complete with full URL) but its rear end is NING. The site owner can choose the level of interaction she wants with already establish NING community members. The interaction potential is very high and it has been something I have been waiting years for (now if someone would just specialize and do this just for bloggers, that would be great… so far no major blog hosting/community site goes to this level of interaction).

Heck, even I’m thinking of building a website(s) on their platform and hope to even create a few applications using their API’s (if they allow that… not sure they do yet)

I wonder if NING see the potential to use their app for creating knowledge systems for businesses and municipalities? If they do, i think the skies the limit for them (but keep in mind that the sky has its limits lol)

Anyway, if Grou.ps can do all the same things, them maybe we have a competition going, but I don’t see it yet.

@killerlocator
Dude, give it up. We’re not just saying “lovator” sites is dumb ’cause were jealous and don’t get the web ecosystem like you do. We’re trying to help you. Stop, no more ——locator domains. Well, unless you got time and $ to burn.

http://www.GroupsLocator.com

Interesting announcement anyway. I’m sure lots of web companies will open source some or all of their core code for a number of pragmatic reasons (Sokullu more or less says to lower hiring costs in the video interview above).

In response to some comments here; our source code can be reached from http://code.google.com/p/groudotps - we’ve only opened forum and wiki modules for now, but more to come, you’ll be able to get the exact same Grou.ps infrastructure on your own server very soon. We really believe in the power of open source, and need for commoditization of platforms. Note that current version is still under review, that’s why it currently resides on SVN - production ready snapshots will be ready in less than a month.

Also, let me shamelessly add this: http://docs.google.com/Present.....1ch2hbn3r# - this is my presentation at the Webrazzi - Techcrunch event. It’s too implicit, requires my explanation. Basically I mention our new modules (Files, Videos, ..) new templates (more than 20, they are nice, check out) and new languages (Hebrew, Greek, German, Spanish, Swedish…. all by volunteers) - also tell that we are the first and only one who offer “no topbar” - which means 0 branding - your site is completely yours, yet another Grou.ps premiere.