I am releasing it in its early possible useable state in hopes of starting to receive some useful feedback from actual users. I will then, of course, iterate and build out the remaining features based off of that feedback.
Right now, it's in open-Beta, completely free, and will stay that way likely through the summer. For the Fall semester, I will introduce Basic and Pro plans. I'm not sure yet exactly how I will implement the plans, but the current idea is that the Basic will be free but pretty limited (limited file uploads, etc) and the Pro will have all features unlocked and cost around $5 per semester per person.
The app is built around group ToDo's: scheduling them, assigning them to group members, and discussing them. The idea is to let users quickly add ToDo's using the "Quick Add." The "Quick Add" acts like Google Calendar's feature of the same name and will parse out date data as well as the names of any group members and assign it to them. Then users can drag ToDo's to reorder them, onto the calendar to re-assign a due date, and onto discussions to link them to the discussion.
Additional notes for those curious: I developed YakGroups with Django and jQuery using Netbeans as an IDE on a Mac starting in early September 2009. I finished my CS undergrad in May 2009, just completed my first semester as an MBA grad student, and I have been desperately wanting a tool like this for the many group projects I have encountered over the past several years.
In developing YakGroups, there are some nods to Google Groups/Cal and to Etherpad. I tried to keep the signup process as close to Etherpad's wonderfully succinct model as I could; as a result, one click on the homepage will allow you to start using the application. Not yet, but eventually the discussions will be linked to emails like in Google Groups.
Thanks for all your feedback.
http://www.yakgroups.com
