The New Gather: 600 articles in 24 hours

I think this article may in fact be the last one on page 2244, being approximately number 599 in 24 hours.

Somebody publish something, quick !

I took a look at your new article John. Is it the articles that are missing or the comments? Or both? Also I went to Tom's articles today because I thought I remembered someone bringing up that piont and Tom responding that that should not be the case and that he would look into it.

But I couldn't find it just now. Though I did find your comment pointint Tom to your new article.

I stay away from MY Gather. I don't know if the javascript slows it down, but I just go directly to Articles and scroll down, looking for stuff to read. Then I click on By Me to read my stuff. I also look at my email notifications to see what is up. I've lost some comments (though I think they did post to the poster because the counter increased, but I never saw them), and some things have been very slow to load. Very slow.

I was mostly off this afternoon and only got back on tonight at midnight. I've known from previous experience that sometimes Gather seems slowest during 12-6 p.m. or so, or 9-6 or 9-8 Eastern Time, because both Coasts, but a lot of Europe, Asia, Australia and likely Africa, too are online. Or could be.

After midinght, less of the East Coast is online, which eliminates a certain number of people.

Does this help, Liz?

Also, have you gotten your notifications back ever? Mine were gone for an afternoon only.

Weird, John A. Did you see my comment that I had read somewhere earleri today about Tom thinking it was a fluke?

Oh, that is really too bad, Liz. I have dialup and the log on is usually OK. My computer is new and I have Firefox. But today REALLY IS SLOW, I do know that. Is it any better tonight? Prolly not.

Tom did say somewhere today he thought missing comments was a fluke. And that he'd look into it.

It seems to be getting faster on most pages now, at 10:30 p.m. PT. I have scrolled through articles and photos in the general colections tonight and added a few connections, as well as discovering some new stuff. I still feel like I am missing my network's stuff, since I only got about 3 pages deep there, today. This weekend I want to try and read all the fiction that is going unnoticed. Lots of the Amazon Shorts are going unread.

I have Cable DSL and I am having problems logging on and staying on. About the article, I also try to read and comment as much as possible to new(er) than me Gather members.

Aileen, you're doing a good thing. I think you and I are on the same pages. We seem to be shadowing each other or one the other, whichever.

I went into Amazon Shorts the other day and read quite a lot of them. But many more have been published since then. A lot of the authors seem to be new or not well connected and a lot in the Gather community don't seem to know about them. I plant to go back in and read a lot more of them in the next couple of days, too.

Liz, I don't know much about wireless. How has this been hellatious? Pls do tell me. Here or email, if you prefer.

Bonnie, you are doing a very good thing. The newer authors will really appreciate your efforts, believe me. I have a few days off from work now so I can afford the time to do that, too. Many times my time here is limited, so I do what I can. That is all anyone can do.

Liz, most likely. I've used wirelesss elsewhere. We should really just ditch DSL and jump to wireless, here, too. What is the downside to wireless? Plenty. But what is your experience, apart from walls and different reception in areas and rooms?

Liz... sorry you're having a bad day!

Kathryn, good advice on this article.

As per weird things happening, this is pretty much what you get after the first day of such a huge change. Many of the problems can't be anticipated, others need time to troubleshoot. Right now, I think we all feel like we're groping around in the dark. I like Kathryn's advice about perusing the New Articles and checking My Gather for comments on your own articles. Hang in there folks.

lot of downsides to wireless-- if you're anywhere near an airport, the planes can interfere and the frequences vary with teh weather. so if you live in an area where it has ehavy snow or fogs, you can expect horrible signals... for many people in prague, wireless is only option because there are no landlines. only about 50% prague has landlines--

but wireless is very dependent on topography, weathr and any other kind of interference. for me, I live under the main takek-off path to prague airport-- and I had great announcements coming from the tower control, but connection could break every minute, or be gone for three days--

it depends on many factors and whether or ot there is a good wifi carrier over there.

Hi, just got back from Articles, where I'm finding good stuff. I actually like Articles because I can find the most recent 20 on one page, then I can scroll back a few pages or keep up with what is coming through.

I actually don't use My Gather, (too slow for me, is it javascipt that makes it slow? it is a .jsp extension) but I use the BY ME selection after clicking Articles.

Easier at night than during midday. Today, because of the newness of the New Gather, I think everybody and his/her cousin was on, expecially for a weekday.

By the way, what are we all doing up at 2 AM??

That is too bad Mary about the wireless in Prague. Though I guess you're used to it. Prague is one of my very fave cities; was there in 1990. Fascinating time to have been there, I have to say; people were so enthusiastic but there were not a lot of goods available, yet. But the prices were excellent for the American dollar. I will write a little story soon about our experience. Thanks your coment prompted my thinking about Prague...

Yeah, really Ed. Don't we have something better to do? Nudge nudge, wink wink. I'm usually here at this hour, even when I work. My husband has ebay auctions now on baseball cards and spend usually 9 p.m. until 11:30 on the ocmputer. Before that, it is my son or daughter or I'm cooking dinner. Or working.

So, this is my cherished time.

Ed, what's your excuse?

And the resta use guys?

Gas

Couldn't you at least pretend to come up with something more glam, Ed?

Headless hussy Marie Antoinetete, in honor of Bastille Day that has just passed is still serving Chocolate Cognac cake to all comers.

Any takers? By the slice....Dark chocolate pieces, mixed with cake batter and yogurt for moistness and a cup of Cognac, then baked and marinated in a bed of Cognac for 15 minutes before serving.

Oh, I forgot. I have a bottle of wine cooler I have to open. This comment made me thirsty for booze.

OK. It is now official. 600 articles published since July 14th dawned. 26 hours ago.

When it is midnight in here, ( Athens Greece) it must be afternoon in the States and I always read in my morning.
\The number is huge; I didn't know that till I read ur article. Wow !

How interesting. Booze sounds good to me. Unfortunately, I have to settle for soymilk until I'm done with the pain meds. Cheers!

Marinela, we are on Eastern TIme U.S. are you in the same time zone? it is midnight (2 a.m. actually) here. Europe is 6 hours ahead of us, but you seem to be on the same time zone or 2 hours behind. it is nearly 3 a.m. Time for me to go to bed.

Breanne, I will save some for you !

Kathryn, thank you for encouraging people to read articles posted by new people. Gather can otherwise feel too small and incestuous...good for you for encouraging everyone to go help out some new members.

I've had friends who say that Gather seems very incestuous with a lot of garbage being posted. That is an impression we can correct with effort.

I'm still working out how best to use the new format. But 600 articles in 24 hours is almost 2 new articles per minute - no one can cope with reading all of those or anywhere like it.

Magi

You are so right and I try to do the same. This article will explain to some of our profound writers why they are oversighted. I am still kicking the cpu and waiting for points to fall out of the slots!

perhaps this weekend I will have a change to investigate more throughly

Nicola, it is so much more than I imagined.

Glenda, well, at least you know that if you're waiting for points to fall out of the slots you'll be waiting a long time, better go to Vegas, instead. That was pretty funny, Glenda.

Kathryn, you have brought to light an amazing fact! Six hundred articles in 24 hours in no mean achievement. Do you think the activity on Gather has suddenly spurted in leaps and bounds of late? What is the ratio of comments to articles? I also wonder about the storage capacity of Gather. It is a gratuitous thought: The electronic age is giving every budding writer a chance to publish articles. This is the greatest revolution in the world communication and mass media since the invention of the printing press.

Good post. I always learn from your articles.

About the speed issue: The Internet is a tough nut to crack. there are so many factors that can impact speed. I also notice that some of you are talking about different things. When we talk wireless here in the states, we are typically talking about WiFi wireless. Many other countries wireless cellular is the only viable way. Cellular can be very slow. WiFi can be very fast if your underlying DSL or Cable or T1 is fast and traffic on it light.

But another thing worth considering is this is a new build. When developing software, at least developing good software, you insert a lot of debugging code. This code can typically be toggled on or off. When testing you leave it on. I would not be surprised if debugging asserts and alerts were left on for day one leading to seriously decreased performance. Since there appears to have been no large beta test, this would be wise. Although MOST companies would leave debug on through alpha and beta testing and turn it off for production release, but the web sort of tosses those "rules" aside and makes for a anything goes environment.

I am not making excuses for them. i have wicked fast Internet and indeed it is slow and loads with funny priorities in the way it paints the page (not something you can ALWAYS control). I am appalled by the apparent lack of testing and usability testing.

I have decided of all my complaints, the biggest one is the lack of testing or compassion for people with 800x600 or similar screen resolutions, which is a significant portion, if not majority of the users of the Internet. Developers and executives tend to have much higher resolutions, so it is often QA and marketing's job to write in the specs what resolutions should be targeted. This is, to an experienced architect of web sites, a mission critical aspect. If MOST users must scroll right to see the whole page, the site should fail testing. It is OK to probe the capabilities of the target machine and adjust output, but this is not always possible on the web the way it is on local software.

Building a web site is a complex activity involving numerous areas of focus. Some of the top areas are findability-meaning how easy can you find what you want, general usability-how quickly can tasks be accomplished, abandonment rate-how many users abort their tasks for whatever reason is a metric that must be measured and understood, performance vector-how well it works across variety of user types (dial up, broadband, old computers, new computers, big screens, small screens).

I saw a comment about ebay and Google. Let's be fair, a small startup cannot be expected to perform the way large, profitable companies can. But they can be expected to ask "what makes those site successful". In fact, when undertaking a site design I make it a point to quiz every individual involved about their favorite web sites and ask what makes them "work" for them. I then collect those attributes and ask which are reasonable goals for our project.

Lastly, sites are usually businesses, attempting to profit or break even. So a lot of thought must go to maximizing revenue recognition even if it flies in the face of other concerns, although balancing the concerns is always ideal. As I play with this new site I am beginning to grok some of the thoughts behind this new site, but remain annoyed at the usability flaws and apparent functionality loss and continue to wonder why this was not offered in a toggled manner the way Yahoo and other successful sites do it. I know it costs a little more, but I have done much research and the actual total cost is less. You see, when you've done web projects for over a decade and created some of the web functions that are among the busiest in the world, you learn some things. No book will ever give you the insight that a decade in the real world trenches will give you. Likewise, web work involves an interesting and varied cast of characters from the art department to the content producers and there is a level of experience that repeat senior management teams have in bringing these crazy people together and balancing their wildly different views on the world. I continue to hope that what we saw on day one was the result of a rushed release and the above core skill set does exist in the company producing this environment. I care because it has become a fun part of my day to hang out here.

And yes, I indeed have a bit of frustration that I wanted to bring my experience to the Gather.com team. I am not silly enough to believe the world would be perfect if I was involved, but I know that my work on Symantec.com, About.com, Lycos.com, Earthlink.com, and dozens of others with hundreds of millions of users per day renders me one of the most experienced web executives/architects in the Boston area. It is never fun to hear you are not exactly what we are looking for but it is particularly frustrating when from the outside it seems like I was exactly what they needed. I think there was a perception that they needed more of a code jockey then an executive/architect type, but pumping out more code is never smarter then pumping out the right code. After 22 years I can code faster and smarter then most IF that was the best use of my skills, but most companies find that having me work cross functionally on getting the requirements and then breaking the project up and managing the execution is a smarter use of my decades. Anyway, I sleep well at night knowing that billions of dollars and thousands of jobs have been created from my work and continue to hope that some Boston company will value what I have to offer! Maybe this is a good example for me to use when talking to VCs and executive teams interested in me that shows areas that should have been addressed. If you know of a web or software company looking for the best there is, have them email me at rich@richsad.com or see my resume at my simple homepage on http://richsad.com/about_rich.html. I know there are people in Boston area doing cool things and I am ready to go!

Dolphi, I suspect (but cannot prove) that the articles have increased recently, but not necessarily because of the New Gather. I think the articles have been increasing steadily. Going by my email notifications, it seems that every month there are a lot more articles.

Ratio of comments to articles, I don't know.

Gather has mentioned (in TOS? ) that each member has 10 GB of storage space.

Yes, you are right the digital media revolution has given all of us an incredible voice, unparalleled at any time in history and not since Gutenberg has there been such an important discovery as this. That would make an excellent article, Dolphi !!!

Carol, I hope so, this weekend would be an excellent time to just go through everything the New Gather has to offer.

Andrea, thanks for your kind words> I'm so glad people learn from me. I think that is partly why I write: to entertain and to have value for people.

Excellent discussion points, Rich. I think you bring up some really good pionts about usability features, and I do know that Tom mentioned this New Gather is extensible, so maybe some of the functionality you talk about willl be built in.

I think Gather copes as best it can with a small staff; I'm amazed actually at tne number of hours everyone must be working. They are true Gatherholics !

True, large sites like Ebay and Google have functionality that smaller sites can't be expected to emulate.

I think that Tom is responsive to the needs of Gather members; in his article yesterday, he did comment that he's heard a lot about the orange comment boxes and is taking that issue under advisement, so to speak.

I think your experience, Rich, is excellent, and I'd hired you in a minute.

okay. . . how do you people have so much time to read and read and read? i can barely find a few minutes to read a few things and post a few others. i mean, i'd love to get paid to sit and read gather posts, but i don't think either of my bosses would go for that! =P

I cut short my sleep, Clair. As for others, I don't know. Sounds as if you are a budding Gatherholics, as, really, we all are. I stayed up until 3 last night; I've called in sick a few too many times. This weekend I actually have time, seeing as I don't return to work until Tuesday.

I don't know what's going on. But in the past few days, I've been using my gather points as sort of a gauge of activity on my articles. I thought this new system would help get us more readers, but, at least for me, I feel like it's not helping--in fact it seems to have lessened readership altogether.

Has anyone else experienced a dropoff?

That is a good question, Joshua. I am going around reading articles found in Articles. Not many have a lot of comments. We are lacking the left margin activity, which was pretty busy, I am sure. All those articles mentioned in "Network Activity," the "Recent Articles" right here at our click points - not our fingertips - but click tips - all we had to do was click to get directly to an article. Now, we have to GO into ANOTHER page, such as Articles and Scroll. Or go to My Gather (which for me is SO SLOW I avoid it) and check our Network Activity.

I've learned in my 6 months here (anniversary today) that as soon as something requires a click AWAY from a page onto something else, Gatherers are less likely to do this.

Read an article and click comment post. Fine.

Read an artilcle and click a link AWAY from Gather. Less fine.

Read an article and click on another article, directly. Fine.

Read an article and Click Articles, Scroll, find article, Click, Read, Click Comment. Less Fine.

Read an article and Click My Gather. Click on Network Articles. Less Fine.

I think you are correct in your assessment. I was wondering the same thing.

i think gather should hire rich. i am slowly but surely figuring my way around the new gather. on my desktop i cannot see the right hand side of the screen without scrolling over. my laptop has a bigger screen so i can see the whole thing. it seems to me (with limited computer knowledge) that since some of the advertising is on the right that it would be absolutely imperative to gather to have the entire screen visible. just my humble opinion. it is amazing to me though that i read an article about gather in the boston globe and shared the information with my sister, nancy spivey. now there are hundreds of articles published each day, and i feel as if i know many of the "regulars." that is really a wonderful thing.

Clare, thanks for the vote of confidence, but I think Gather already decided against that. Well, they certainly for the specific position we spoke of. I really like this site, I'd almost say love it, and I believe social networking of some sort will be one of the next killer apps. This new build is bumming me out but the proof will be in how they respond. Some things are really surprising to me. For example, several of the bugs I've mentioned in my various comments only apply on Microsoft IE 6 under Windows. When using Firefox or Safari the keyboard navigation works fine (down and up arrows, page down/up). When you must log in it also brings you back to the right place on the Mac but not Windows. The previous build had the opposite problem in that many things seemed broken on Macs. I love Macs and I am a fanatic Mac user BUT 98% of the world are Windows users so you would think Windows would have gotten more testing. But I am sure not complaining about things working on the Mac.

BUT... I have many Macs. One is a brand new 20" iMac Core-Duo Intel-based Mac with a fantastic screen with high resolution. But I am mobile sort of a guy, so my workhorse is a 2 year-old Powerbook 12" G4. The new Gather build is horrible on a small screen like this. I have a 12" Dell and a ~14 IBM and the new site is weak, at best, on those as well. Pull up some research on the screen resolution of "Main Street, World" and you'll see that the small laptops are more representative of the real world's screen resolution then some hot new computer. You have to either shoot for the common denominator (not necessary LOWEST, but mid-range at least) or have it function differently if there is not enough space. What eats me up most about this build is how "all or nothing" it is. Think how happy we'd all be if we could try it, send bug reports and commnts, then toggle back to old build?

KEO, Thank you too for the vote of confidence. I have been doing development for over 20 years with the last decade heavily focused on web sites, services and commerce/revenue oriented sites. Someone in the Boston area must be looking for someone like me. We just haven't found each other. I am eager to resolve this in the next month. I really need the stress and challenges of the development process. It is a big part of my life that is missing. So anyone with networking connections for me contact me at rich@richsad.com. I am ready to kick ass and change the world, or just make some good money, whichever a given company is out to do!

"A lot of people are not getting many comments; a lot are getting very few or zero comments, in fact."

LOL! Not this article...

I really like how people are answering each other's comments here. That is really good.

Rich, I think social networking already is the new killer app. Don't you think it has arrived already?

Rich, good of you to provide your email addy for people to contact you re: software engineering jobs.

I just published a new article on Day 2 of the New Gather. Very FEW articles are being published. That is not good. The new article on Day 2 of New Gather is here:
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976767364

Steve, LOL. Let's go to my new article and YOURS !

Read like thunder.

Great going, Susan. Keep it up !!!

Steve, a couple of days ago, we were on page 4000 - that is up from page 2211 on July 14. About 900 articles are published on any given day now !!!

So is this good or bad?