All -
I'm just an outsider, but here's my take on all this...
Discussion is the life blood of a virtual group, and as such its
home should be very carefully chosen.
Meetup's discussion features are limited, and are IMO inadequate
for an active technical group.
Facebook reminds me of the time I was in a tiger park in Chiang
Mai
(photo at
http://www.bbs-software.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/tiger-kingdom-73.jpg).
Sure, you can hang out with a tiger from time to time, but who's
to tell when it's
going to turn on you? At the heart of it, I guess I don't trust
Facebook.
I like being able to read and reply to the messages via email,
where I have
a plethora of client applications from which to choose. Heck,
there's probably a way to
read Google Group messages on a text only terminal. (There are
definitely text mode
nntp readers, but I think most Google Groups these days are not
Usenet groups,
to avoid spam.)
Google is a behemoth enterprise like Facebook, but I feel they're
more conscientious and trustworthy than Facebook.
I realize that some of these opinions are subjective, based on
feelings rather than thorough objective examination, but my
preference is Google Groups.
- Keith
--
Keith R. Bennett
http://about.me/keithrbennett