Move your MSN Group

Hi, with MSN Groups shutting it's doors in 2 days, we wanted to send out an update to everybody still in our pending queue.

We've successfully imported over 1,000 groups over the past two months.  And we officially closed our queue yesterday.  I've notified some groups earlier this week that they may not make the cutoff date, but we'll try our best.  We have over two hundred groups left and we hope to get to them before MSN Groups closes on Feb 21st - but we cannot guarantee it.  We are working around-the-clock on this.  Microsoft has provided no official information of an exact shutoff time, so we will run through as many as we can until the door closes.  Due to time constraints, we cannot import photo gallery's and custom pages, please see "Additional Options" below for alternative options.


== If you've found a new home ==
  A number of groups have already started a new home or you're content with multiply.  If this is the case - PLEASE let us know so that we can take you off our queue and spare room for hundreds of other managers.  We're doing this for free, and hope that you would respect the time constraint and needs of other managers just like yourself.


== Some groups had errors ==
  We've had about 5% of groups on MSN throw errors that prevented us from importing the group (this is MSN's fault not yours).  We've attempt to download all groups twice to see if we can get around the errors.  So some of you that have been waiting for a few weeks may have had an error in the past and we still have yet to make a second pass on your group.  We will continue to inform groups that cannot be imported due to errors.


== How our Process Works ==
   Stage 1) We DOWNLOAD the message boards of your group to our servers.  This must happen before MSN closes.

   Stage 2) We IMPORT your group into your new home on Lefora.  This can happen after MSN closes.

   Please note, downloading of Stage 1 means that we have a 'copy' of your group's message boards, this will allow us to 'Import' your group into your new home, potentially after the Feb 21st closing date.  We will send you status updates.


== Helping your priority ==
  When we see groups active on their new home on Lefora, we're more inclined to bump them up in the queue to make the process happen faster and avoid duplicating content.  So if your group is 100% intent on using Lefora as your new home after MSN shutsdown, be sure to let all your members know they should be active on Lefora.  We can import content around your members - so you can/should be using your Lefora group at this point.  Signing up to lefora takes less than 15 seconds.  Please message and email your group about this.


== Kick starting your group's new home ==
  You should update your MSN Group's welcome page to point to your new home at lefora.com.  As we cannot move member's email address and passwords, they will have to create a new account on your Lefora group.  This will take them less than 15sec each.
  1. Customize your new group's home,unlike MSN, you can change your background colors and header images.
  2. If you have any questions, search or post them at http://support.lefora.com
  3. Update your old msn group's homepage to let everybody know of your new home
  4. Send an announcement to everybody on MSN with a link to your new home


== Additional options for you ==
  Due to time constraints, we cannot download your groups photo gallery's or pages, we can only download the message boards at this point, however there are other OPTIONS for you to backup this information.

  1) Backup your photos -  If you want to save your photo gallery, there are  there is a third-party application that can save your photos to your computer.  It's not associated with us, but it's free for 30 days: http://www.vowsoft.com/ 

  There's an alternate method for backing up your photos and you can learn about it here: http://groups.msn.com/CommunityManagersAssociationCMA/general.msnw?action=get_message&mview=0&ID_Message=77500&LastModified=4675697573192377304

  2) Backup your pages - If you would like to move your pages from your group over into your new home on Lefora, you can copy the text from your page, and paste it into a new topic on lefora.  You can link to that topic on your sidebar, so that your members can easily find the pages.


== Questions ==
  Please read this email carefully to make sure your question isn't already answered.  As we have hundreds of managers to attend to, it may be difficult for us to answer questions over email before Feb 21st.  You can always post in our support forum - http://support.lefora.com/forum/


I truly wish your group the best on your group's new home,
Vincent
www.lefora.com / www.movemsngroups.com

We've been running our imports 24x7 for the last few weeks now, literally working around the clock.  Due to MSN closing in just a few days on Feb 21st, 2009, we've had to trim down some of our importing.

• We're only importing message boards from this point foward, not Photo Gallery's and Pages, but there are tools to help you save those as well.
• We can't guarantee you'll be downloaded in time, but we'll try our best.

Our process works in 2 Stages:

• STAGE 1) We DOWNLOAD the message boards of your group to our servers.
• STAGE 2) We IMPORT your group into your new home.  Please note, downloading of Stage 1 means that we have a 'copy' of your group's message boards, this will allow us to 'Import' your group into your new home, potentially after the Feb 21st closing date.  If you apply, we will send you status updates.

After a few hiccups with MSN, our imports are back on track running smoothly.  We've imported hundreds of groups onto lefora.com with great success.  Our queue is currently a few hundred groups long and growing every day.  If you want to ensure your MSN group is backed up before Feb 21st, 2009, you must act FAST!  Be sure to submit you details and a MSN Group mover specialist will get back to you within a few days.

Fill out this forum to Save your MSN Group.

We were away for the holidays, but we're back now, in full force, saving hundreds of MSN Groups.  If you hadn't heard from us for the past week, apologies, we just had a ton of MSN managers to contact, you should here from us soon, within the next day or two.

We've begun importing some very large groups too, one of them has over half a million posts!  If you have a large MSN Group, and have been having trouble with sites like Multiply and Aimoo, look no further, submit your group to us and we'll be able to handle it.  We have dozen of servers running to download everybody's group.  We're downloading multiple groups at a time.  The small ones take just a few minutes, the large one's may take a few hours, but we'll be able to download your group, no matter what the size.

Here's to a new home for your MSN Group in 2009!

We've had a lot of questions on how our service compares to multiply (seems not a lot of people are happy with multiply because it's more of a 'social networking' service.).

So we put together a handy chart comparing our feature set to MSN Groups, Multiply, Yuku, and Proboards (the last two have no way to import your MSN Group data).  I think you'll be pleased with all the information we pooled together.

We also added another chart of 'How this whole process works'.   MSN Group owners have been a little unsure of the inner workings and if we would be able to import all their pages and message boards - so this should clear up any questions you might have.

We're happy to announce that we're releasing our MSN Group mover for public use.  Our beta trials with a few MSN Group admins has gone extremly well, and now we're able to open it to the public.

We've added more to this site to help you understand how the process works.  We added a Frequently Asked Questions page, a MSN Group mover form that asks you a few questions about your group, and a number of testimonials that everybody has sent in.

Soon, we'll be adding a support group to help answer any questions you might have, before, during, or after your move.

Thank you for your support, we're happy they we're able to return the good will and look forward to moving and upgrading many MSN Groups!