I love Facebook. Its a window into how people live their lives, their views and attitudes, along with a great way to keep in touch with everybody.

In fact, a business without a Facebook presence, or at least doesn’t check what its target market are talking about has lost a valuable asset. But sometimes, Facebook can give away a little too much.

Facebook evidence is now used in many divorce or dismissal cases. Sometimes there’s things you need to keep confidential. Privacy is a precious and much-depleted commodity.

They’ve certainly recognised this in Poland, which has a large migrant worker community. They needed something to help them stay in touch, securely. And GG gives it to them.

So just what is GG?

The new gg.pl website comes from the Polish communications provider, GG Network SA, which provides one of Poland’s largest messaging communities, Gadu-Gadu Messenger.

The website, which went into beta release on the 14th June will leverage the existing Gadu-Gadu Messenger facilities, adding multimedia, discussion and group collaboration, either ad-hoc or automatically.

GG was designed as a secure collaboration platform. Piotr Pokrzywa of GG Networks explains. “The messenger user’s needs are growing and it is impossible to satisfy them using just one application. They want to communicate and exchange multimedia files between small groups of friends.

“Sometimes, they don’t want to present themselves and their views to the outside world. Very often they worry about their privacy, which is an essential component of Gadu-Gadu. We had all those things in mind when we were developing GG.pl.

“Its a natural extension of our messenger service.”

From a messenger client to a secure Social Networking website

Privacy controls extend across the website. Not even friends can see a user’s full list of contacts, just the acquaintances they have in common. Non-members have no access to any contacts, any user data or anything they do on the site.

Privacy levels can be easily chosen by the user – they can make a profile public and visible if they like, but this must be a deliberate action. Given that a substantial number of the GG community is always online, Instant messaging between users makes GG a very dynamic place. Real-time messaging is one of Gadu-Gadu’s key features.

In fact, GG was created based on existing GG Messenger user habits.

“We thought about how we could improve an existing tool and respond to specific needs of our current and future users. Privacy, of course, was a major issue.” says Krzysztof Szalwa of GG Network S.A’s managing board.

“When developing the website, we took into account the unique nature of the Gadu-Gadu community and focused on what users love and addressed what they currently lack.”

Zbigniew Pieńkowski, CIO GG Network S.A. takes up the point. “Many messaging websites don’t use a real friend model, they’re often just casual people we accidentally met once somewhere.

“Gadu-Gadu, and now also GG.pl, allows us to create lists of contacts who are real friends and acquaintances, people we communicate with in our everyday life, just like contacts in the address book of our mobile phone.”

Just the beginning

GG’s initial growth has been rapid. But the creators don’t intend to sit back. They’ll actively use feedback from users to change and improve the site, so that it’s constantly being brought closer to what people want from it.

Currently, GG offers an email facility using the popular Gadu-Gadu Mail client, but will soon allow users to SMS-message direct from the website – and voice connections are planned.

“It’s our intention in the coming months to add new functionality to the website literally every few days. Some will be quite obvious and can be seen on other websites already. Many changes will stem from the natural integration of other social services offered by the GG Network group.”

Letting the users choose

“But we’re also planning a number of surprises. Crucially, we’re publishing the beta version of the website because we want our users to have a real influence on its growth and development. So, if you ask me today how the website will look in a year from now, I can only say – ask our users!” says Marek Soból, CPO of GG Network.

Ironic isn’t it, that Poland, once a repressed Eastern Block state, should provide a definitive lesson in socially-driven design. Many commercial sites, particularly banking, would do well to look to GG’s example to see how it should be done.

Powodzenia, GG!