The wire for group

Hello,

Has anyone developed a way to add the wire functionality to groups so that each group can have it's own wire, which my users would prefer to a discussion board.  If so, I'd appreciate any information on how to implement.  If not, I'd appreciate any idea of whether it would be possible to create and any hints about where to begin that I can pass on to the SQL/PHP programmers on my team. 

Thanks.

School Technologist