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Gather gets people talking
Going online to (1) connect with friends and strangers, (2) post your very own content and (3) learn from others’ experiences is nothing new, for most of the savvy webologists out there, like you, who can probably safely argue that you’ve “been there, done that”.
Yet, there comes a time when we just need to vent off about the news or something happening in our lives and the global immaturity level of MySpace being a frustrating turn-off for anything remotely intelligent, we’re left wondering where our smarter musings could find a friendly echo. Such a place exists (fortunately) and it’s appropriately called Gather.
Based in Boston, Thomas A. Gerace has founded a different kind of social networking community where anything that matters can be discussed. Sharing a poem, a recipe, an opinion, a manifesto or even geniune news will likely score you valuable feedback from rather well informed members of this huge community.
This makes the effort of actually posting good messages worthwhile and over time, you’ll be building up a nice library of articles (or images) that others can learn from. Needless to say, get many more chances of learning useful stuff using Gather than most MySpace-type communities.
Gather does a good job at keeping its members busy with ongoing writing contests, trips and money rewards to whoever participates, in the community. Nobody gets to make millions but the little extra pocket change may put a smile on your face.
It’s entirely free to join and use. There appears to be no limit on the amount of data you can post to Gather although quality content will be much better for your karma. While there has been a huge influx of new members lately, Gather’s server farm seems to be taking the load quite gracefully, which adds to the overall user experience.
The best way to start making a name for yourself is to post your first story and wait for the other members to answer you. When they do, request to be friends with them. Also remember to join a few groups and before you know it, you’ll be a happy Gather member too!
Are you curious to see how I’ve used Gather, over the past few months? Just head to my Gather page and request a “friend” link ; )
Tags: gather, social networking, friends, sharing
One Response to “Gather gets people talking”
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If a social networking engine like MySpace got all its content in order, maybe something nicer would come of it.
Right now, there’s so much autoposting going on, so many sparkling images and such wildly varying ways in which pages display that it’s somewhat of an ordeal to browse through the many sections.
Without making everything look the same, MySpace might benefit from an intelligently planned cleanup.