One of Gather's core missions has been to connect individuals and content providers with each other in order to enable and promote an ongoing dialog to a diverse and vibrant community. We are here to help you connect to people, content, and groups that enrich your daily life. We connect you to the issues of the day covered by public radio, other content providers, and Gather members with uniquely honest and truth-seeking writing, journalism, and first-person accounts. With the launch of Gather Groups, we can now begin to make these connections happen in new ways, and make your links to people and content easy to achieve.
Groups: The online dinner party. How many times have you been at a dinner party where someone mentions a story, a news item, or a great new song, and prefaces it by "I was listening to public radio…" You discuss these topics over dinner, but when you leave, the conversation leaves as well. If you happen to remember it, you might go seek out the clip. On Gather, you can have those great conversations at any time. Hannah Dreyma (dreyma.gather.com) and Bert Bigelow (bigelowrs.gather.com) are great examples of this, and the conversations they have started are timely and thought provoking. Each of them has dozens of comments per article, in which they joke, discuss, and share good, personal perspectives. These are the kind of deep, fun, meaningful conversations that happen all across Gather. Literally, an ongoing range of dinner conversations, from the arts to politics to personal issues, but all at your fingertips, and all with people who share the public radio listener mindset and beyond. Don't we all want our dinner party experiences and daily conversations to be like that?
Gather Groups are your creation. We created the Groups platform to help you connect with others. This means that we have placed the creation of these groups under your control. Do you want open membership or do you want to approve everyone? Do you want it visible to all of the Gather community or is it just a place to share with the group's members? You can allow members to publish, or you can keep control of who can publish to the group. You can create work, friend, family, topical, and geographic groups. You can make as many as you want – they are free. If you have a set of people you interact with regularly, give groups a try. Make sure you tag it so those you want to have find it can do so easily. For example, if you create a sustainability group, tag it with environment, your name, etc.
Groups come in all shapes and sizes. By using Groups, you can invite a few, tens, or hundreds of people to "talk over dinner" with you on any subject ranging from politics to business to knitting, with the banter and friendliness you would share with your friends. Allow people to connect on a single topic, in a small group, or on a larger topic with hundreds of members. The issue of community is not just how to find it, but how to maintain an interesting dialog that keeps the community going. An active community of 50 is more fun than a stagnant community of 1,000. The Groups goal is to enable people to talk about a specific topic, share a network of advice, or stay in touch with images, updates, and commentary that you have selected within the broader Gather world. Take a look at some popular groups like documentary film (documentaryfilms.gather.com) and Flash Fiction Writers Group (flashfiction.gather.com) as two different, but fast growing, groups created by members.
Groups and the Media. Media companies will use Groups on Gather in a unique way. Just like Conde Nast has many titles like GQ and Conde Nast Traveler, one corporate entity can manage many groups. With Groups, readers can subscribe to or become a member of Marketplace, The Splendid Table, or The Writer's Almanac. With links to these shows, the audience can find stories, listen online, comment on stories you care about, and make sure you tell editors what you think is important from your point of view. Media companies like American Public Media have created forums like food.gather.com and sustainability.gather.com for you to contribute your perspectives to a discussion of great restaurants, best cooking tips, or ways to save our forests by using bamboo in your next big home project. All you need to do is search or visit the content spaces you are interested in, subscribe or join, and use Gather to get updates on your favorite content.
Groups are a big component of the new Gather. Create a few, invite your friends and let us know what you think. You can read more of these columns by joining or subscribing to Gather's group, The Editor's Desktop (editors.gather.com). David Cooperstein is Gather's Editor in Chief. You can see other comments and thoughts from me at david.gather.com.
rate
email
print
link to this page
Comments: 13
Seriously though, I think I can speak for a lot of fellow Gather-ers: the social aspect of this site is what keeps me coming back, as well as the feedback and helpful comments on my writing. There is great conversation to be had over just about every posting, and it is these shared conversations that connect us the most.
Keep up the good work!
I'm thinking of writing an article, a sort of "How to " on how to leave more useful information in comments on articles.
Not all comments need to be critiques, but on the other hand, all pat-on-the-back comments are not a good idea either. The spread needs to be wide in order for the comments to be a useful tool.
Comments that respectfully disagree and support their positon with a thought-out response, and comments that agree plus add insight and relection are as valuable as taking a literature class.
Makes a good FAQ or help page, where are the enhancements?
Hope there is more to ocme.
L.
David
Wasn't sure but what I'd missed something.
L.
Thanks for all you do for us Gatherers.
I appreciate you in ways you may not expect. I have my self confidence back after so many years. Bless you all.
Cat
Anyone know the article about the Frangipani?