As a none American I point out that WhatsApp groups have functionally replaced old Facebook for a long time.
- It's a photo album. Anyone who can view your page can see your photos.
- You can also post status updates.
- It publishes a list of your friends. Anyone is free to check that out.
- Your friends can write on your wall, where anyone can see what they wrote.
- It publishes your biographical data: where you go (or went) to school, where you work, whether you're single, and if not what kind of relationship you're in.
- You belong to a number of "groups". The groups don't organize activities or act as chat channels; their purpose is that your page displays a list of the names of the groups to which you belong, and that list is an expression of your personality and/or ideological commitments.
Which of those do WhatsApp groups do?
Used to be there was a whole section of the site meant for connecting with people at the same college/university as you, that you were automatically included in based on your email domain. It had a calendar and events and was geared towards real-world interaction.
"Groups" is 2004. Their domain was still "thefacebook.com".
I do remember Friend Lists were much earlier though.
No, I'm not thinking of something else. You are assuming that when I say "groups", I'm thinking of the feature called "Facebook Groups" in your link, which is a stupid thing for you to assume.
Here's a preserved screenshot of a 2005 page: https://www.shareaholic.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/...
See the link in the left-hand sidebar saying "My Groups"?
My friends and I have silly group threads but they fizzle out fairly quickly because everyone is worried I think that they could be bothering people during the workday with a rather high-priority notification.
Instagram is better, like you say, because we can absorb the links and gifs passively.