Making Group Work Less Painful
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Over the years, social networking sites have been on the rise. As the types of sites continue to diversify, a new one that promises to help you and others work in groups. Wiggio.com is a networking site that stands out from others; it offers a wide variety of options perfect for people trying to work in groups. With Wiggio, keeping a shared calendar, sending mass e-mails, voice and text messages, and storing files in one common folder has never been easier.
Wiggio unlike other sites like Facebook or Myspace, is devoted to helping students, activists, businessmen, and many more connect to get projects done. Wiggio makes it easy to sign up and gather group members.
The registration process takes less than a minute, but that’s not the best part. If one member of Wiggio has created a group, he or she can gather group members without them having to actually register for the Web site, making the group finding process that much more convenient.
Dana Lampert, CEO of Wiggio explained Wiggio’s position in the social networking world. “We are not positioning Wiggio as a social networking site, because every Wiggio group is entirely private,”Lampert said. “Wiggio groups are for real-life groups that are working together or communicating together. No one knows what Wiggio groups you’re in or that the group even exists unless they are in it,” Lampert said.
Once the group is set up, a user can get to work right away, and the group homepage is the central hub for the main features of Wiggio. On the homepage, they will be able to keep an ongoing dialogue with group members.
Wiggio is currently not on the DHS blocked list. Lampert said, “I would hope that Wiggio would never be blocked from use in a high school - it's a productivity tool that helps students work together. I do think that it's an advantage that students can use Wiggio at school, at home and from their cell phones."
The group calendar is a major feature on Wiggio. With the calendar, users can keep track of all your group events, practices, and deadlines, and even sync their calendar with your Google, Yahoo!, or Outlook calendar.
What makes Wiggio stand out from other sites is its group folder, which lets a user store all group files in one secure folder. One cool thing about this feature is the ability to view and edit Word documents and spreadsheets online. It is also possible to create subfolders to organize group documents, spreadsheets, and pictures. Unlike other sites, Wiggio sets no limit to how much a group can store.
One of the most interesting features of Wiggio is the ability to schedule in-person meetings, conference calls and real-time Web chats. Wiggio allows a person to set up free conference calls that group members can dial into through a cell phones, and if they meet in a chat room Wiggio will store the conversation for future reference.
If there is a large group, a poll feature can be utilized to voice people’s opinions. Polls lets users get a quick consensus of your group members without the hassle of emailing and calling everyone: multiple choice, short answer, and yes/no questions can be asked to receive feedback through the answers.
Lastly, the message feature lets a user send mass text messages, voice messages, and emails to other group members. Each group gets its own Wiggio email address to send an email to that address and it goes to the entire group.
Overall, Wiggio promises many things and delivers with outstanding features that allow group projects to run smoother and less painful. Since being released last January, Wiggio has already picked up 120,000 users. The vast majority of these users are college students and professors, although Ms Lampert said “we are growing fast within high schools.”
Hopefully students catch on to this helpful site and use it to help work in groups.
