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Using Google Groups as a Content Management System

I was originally going to use Google's Groups feature to allow readers of my articles to respond with comments, and perhaps expand out into providing readers with a forum for extended discussions. Up until now, I haven't been able to find a reliable way of doing this, although I came the closest with Trello (which requires registration before you can post) and had investigated Disqus just recently. Google Groups has always been a strong possibility, but I shied away from using it because I hadn't found a way yet of incorporating it with my workflow. This changed when I decided that I could compose my articles in Google Mail, and then convert them into their two main formats (documents and a blog post). Over the weekend, I realized that I could also email the text into a Google Group. This would allow me to start the third branch of an article, which would be an area where the article could be discussed. But, as I looked at Google Groups and considered how it fit into my flow, I realized that I once again had things backwards. If I composed the article in Google Groups, the text would be sent to my gmail account where I could then convert it into a blog post and document. Additionally, I have been looking for ways to open up my work flow to contributors, and I believe that Google Groups is the ideal solution. On Saturday, my daughter wanted to post a blog post on the blog I had started for our new baby who is due in February. I gave her access to the blog as an author, and showed her how to write the blog post and then post it. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure it went live before she had completed it. To compound the problem, when it went live there was a danger that it was also posted to Facebook and Twitter, because Wordpress is set up to do that automatically. I realized that it would be risky to allow contributors to post directly to my Wordpress sites on a regular basis. The other disadvantage is that posting on a blog post places content outside of my conversion process. If my daughter was a member of the Baby on Board discussion group, however, she could safely post her new article as a draft in that group, and not only could I then convert it when it was ready but while it was a draft I could respond with feedback and corrections. This is a step that I've known was needed, but I didn't know where to fit it in. Once it has been approved, it could be converted into a document and blog post, and then I would refer back to the thread as a discussion. Others could join the group as readers, and respond via comments. They might be able to see original versions of the article, but I think that's okay. It would just show members the evolution of the content, and if there was information or versions that read better they could enjoy those too. This solves one other problem that I always had. I wanted to build in a review process where a select number of people could review the draft of an article before it was released to a wider audience. I circumvented this kind of stage because I didn't know how to handle it, and it didn't seem practical when I was the only one producing the content. The content that is posted to the group could be put through a review process. The group posts could be referenced in an

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View as: | Blog Post | Doc | Discuss external group such as on Facebook. Reviewers would need to respond inside the Google Group, or the author of the article would also need to be a member of that external group. I'm still sorting out the ramifications of this kind of configuration, but I think that there are quite a few. Anybody who is in charge of publishing a blog, newsletter, or magazine, would want to implement a Google Group because it would allow them to easily convert their content into a format that is usable in their publication. Furthermore, they could invite contributors to the group, and contributors' content could easily be converted into different formats. One could think of Google Groups as a really simple (and free) content management system, much like the ones used in Newsrooms. My suggestion, though is that once a draft has been submitted it could be converted into a Google Document, labeled a draft, and then re-submitted to the group where the members would continue to edit or revise the article as a Google Document. Discussions should continue, but changes should be made to the actual Google Document. This also satisfies my own needs, because I've always wanted the Google Document to be the main asset in my work flow. I wrote this article using Google Groups and I'm planning on putting it through the process that I've outlined above. I welcome feedback.