Yes, a story about the website. How boring :-) Hear me out though because this might be a good idea.
Groups.
Flickr has them. Facebook has them. Myspace has them. Everybody has them. Photographica, I think, should have them. A group would be basically a mini version of Photographica with its own sections, and possibly its own forums and challenges. Here are some examples of a group that one might create:
- Seattle Photographers Group
- Nikon Owners Group
- Urban Photography Group
- Newbie Group
Anybody with an account should be able to start a group on Photographica. Initially, group membership would be open to all, but in the future I'd add support for invite-only groups as well. These groups would have very granular permissions and the owner could delegate tasks to their own editors just like is done here on Photographica. Further down the line, if a group got big enough, its members could pool together, purchase their own domain name, and start their own "real" website with very little fuss.
What about stories?
How would you write a story in this regeme? The same as you do now. You'd start with a draft and when you are finished you would publish the draft to one or more groups, each with their own sections and rules about how often you could post. That is right, I'd get it so a single story and its comments would be shared across one or more groups and even websites--for example if you created a really cool abstract art peice in Photoshop and were in some "Photoshop Artists Group" on Photographica and you were on a "Abstract Art" group on artClick, you'd post the story to both places. The comments would be shared across both websites.
What about the front page of Photographica?
This is where it gets tricky. Flickr doesn't really have a "front page" like we do. I like our front page, and I think you all do as well.. it makes things more intimate because your work is shown for all to see. Keeping this in mind, I have a few ideas that I'd like to toss out:
- Photographica's front page shows all stories posted, including those from any group.
- The front page show only stories that the author chose to post there. Keep in mind that the author can post a story to both the front page *and* a group.
- The front page shows only stories that group owners and editors select.
- The front page shows stories show content front groups the system deems "popular" (as in gets enough comments, gets enough visits, etc)
- Some combination of the above.
I dont want it to loose intimacy and "everybody knows everybody" feel of Photographica, but I also think the idea of groups is something many of you would really like. Unlike voting, I think it would solve many of the problems with peoples hard work getting lost; the groups would probably move slower then the front page, but if the group is big enough, your work would still have lots of eyeballs.
So, two questions:
- Is this a good idea or am I full of it?
- If it is a good idea, what would the front page show?
