Since joining Gather in late November, I have seen a lot of improvements and have had a lot of great experiences. I think that Gather can be very helpful to writers, and I am very pleased to have stumbled upon it when I did. I do think that writing here will help me in my career, but think that if the members were given more control over our homepages, it would be even better.
I would like my homepage to be somewhat of an online writing resume. I'd like to reference it in cover letters to publishers, agents, or editors and have them be able to quickly access my best works on Gather. I am not sure if it has ever been suggested to do things this way, but I think each person should have control over his/her homepage (i.e. www.daydreambeliever.gather.com ) just like an owner has control of a group - with a few added features.
What would this look like? Well, first, each person would have their very own feature section where they could post their best works. When people visit the homepage for a Gather member they could easily check out what that author thinks are his or her best works. This will also help prevent good articles from dating out of the system because people do not look far enough back.
I tag all of my articles with my name. This is cool because now I can go to the Monica Kennedy tag, and it shows all the articles I have had in the past that were Editor's Picks, it shows the Community Picks, and then Recent Articles. I think all of these should be included on the homepage. Then to the left should be a section for images and for the groups he or she owns or are a member of (ownership groups shown first in the list - would still like multiple ownership options on groups for groups with a management team).
I would also like to see the about section included (minus the group tags and recent tags). This would be a place where the author could write an introduction about himself or herself that is more in-depth and personal than the "profile." I like the short section that will float on the main page with a link to the longer about section.
There should be links offered to see who he or she is connected to, but I don't think it is necessary to have any of them listed on the homepage (they all can't be there anyway) and I don't see a need to report the network's activity on the homepage. This can be done on the page that links to the connections. It is a neat way to meet people on Gather, and the connections page is an appropriate place to do it! Also, for myself, I check my network's activity on the Gather homepage; so it does not serve me on my own homepage.
I don't know how others feel about this concept, but I think it would really be great! Our homepage should be a feature section about the individual Gather-er! It is our place to shine, and we need to have control. So, what do you think Gather members and Gather staff?
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Comments: 16
As far as giving control - it is also an idea to consider letting the Gather-er decide which features show on his or her homepage. Perhaps he/she has comments that would not be good for a publisher to see. Allowing the choice could give more freedom.
L.
Good idea to tag all your articles with your name, but couldn't Gather make that happen automaitcally?
Hannah - I am right there with you! Right now, a puclisher would see a lot of articles about how to make Gather better instead of my writing.
Jana - I think that would be an awesome thing to see happen too - but wonder if it is too much to ask for. I think it would pay off for Gather in the long run though. They would have a very powerful site then, and I could even see publishers, editors, and agents asking to see your Gather content. It would help Gather move from being a blog site to a true place for writers who want to be published. Great suggestion!
Everyone else - thanks for your comments!
The trade-off to customization is that the more customized the pages, the harder it is for users to navigate between them. MySpace has done very well with highly customized pages, but they serve a demographic that has a lot of time to look for what they want, is technologically comfortable, and is highly tolerant of things that don't always work (some people put media players on their myspace pages that cause the page to crash or be slow to load...MySpace has made this harder and improved the browsing experience recently). We want the right balance here for Gather.
What do you think?
I think there should be a pre-set look that would suffice for the average Gatherer, then, if you WANT to upgrade, the options could be there. This way, the technically challenged would have an easy set up, andthe technically savvy could change things around more. Try to make it as user friendly as possible, and give instructions on how to use each tool provided.
I agree. I do reference my Gather homepage to editors, so it would be nice to have the ability to add my bio next to my photo, organize my articles by topic, move my network contacts and actions to another page, select my own recommended articles (which could include those of my own selected as Gather editor picks), and perhaps modify the sidebar/link/browse-publish-connect box colors to match the colors on my resume website.