OneDrive Groups

Last updated
OneDrive Groups
Developer(s) Microsoft
Type Social groups
Website Archived official website at the Wayback Machine (archive index)

OneDrive Groups, formerly Windows Live Groups, was an online service by Microsoft as part of its Windows Live range of services that enabled users to create their social groups for sharing, discussion and coordination.

Contents

Features

The service allowed users to form their own community groups, like the way Facebook Groups function, allowing members of the group to participate in group discussions. In addition, Windows Live Groups integrated with the following Windows Live services to provide collaboration and sharing features:

The owner of the group could choose a group theme, message and a picture. They could also delete the group, manage who joins the group etc.

History

Windows Live Groups was released on December 2, 2008. MSN Groups, a similar offering from Microsoft, has been discontinued on/after February 21, 2009. However, contents from MSN Groups could not be migrated over to Windows Live Groups, due to the different focus between the two products. The Windows Live Groups service is optimized for small groups like clubs or families, whereas MSN Groups caters to a wide variety of group sizes and types, including large public groups. [1] Windows Live Groups was updated to the "Wave 4" release on June 7, 2010.

Windows Live Groups was transitioned to become part of SkyDrive, renamed OneDrive in February 2014. The groups.live.com address redirected to a SkyDrive (Now OneDrive) URL.

In May 2014, Microsoft removed the ability to create any new OneDrive groups. [2]

Microsoft announced in August 2015 that OneDrive Groups would be closed on October 16, 2015. [3]

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References

  1. "Why are MSN Groups Closing - Official Windows Live Services Blog". Windows Live team blog. October 3, 2008.
  2. Brinkmann, Martin (May 23, 2014). "Microsoft kills OneDrive Groups, wants you to use shared folders instead". Ghacks. gHacks Technology News. Retrieved 27 May 2014.
  3. Mediati, Nick (23 August 2015). "Microsoft to discontinue OneDrive Groups October 16th. If you use OneDrive's Groups collaboration feature, you have a little under two months to pack up your data and move to something else". PC World. IDG.