Community Guy – Jake McKee

I'm going old school with an organization everyone should know about but few seem to. (Maybe in this community it will be different.)

Web Lab is a now-dormant non-profit in New York with great personal impact on how I see the future of online conversation. I participated in a few of their small group dialogue forums, most notably the 1998-99 Reality Check project that arose out of the Clinton impeachment hearings. SGD is based on the idea that constraints lead to a better experience. They limit the size and duration of a given conversation, allowing only a set number of diverse members to post (everyone can read the results, even now). The people involved have since gone on to become involved in how kids form community and the development of serious games.

I have not yet seen my own project dreams fulfilled, but almost a decade later Web Lab's small group dialogue is still a foundational part of my vision. It may be a bit odd to recommend visiting a site that doesn't get updated, but I feel strongly that the content can be very informative in the present day.

http://www.etsy.com

Ladies and gentlemen, consumers and consumettes, it is my pleasure to introduce Etsy.com. A self-described "place to buy and sell all things handmade," Etsy is a modern, young, digital arts-and-crafts fair on crack (and I use that term in the cutest way possible).

There are a few things that make my heart (and wallet) bubble with joy whenever I go to the Etsy site:

* It's beautiful.

The design is simple, the color scheme as soothing as a tropical fish tank. Even the items they showcase on their homepage are not just random feed; they're color coordinated.

* It's easy... No, it's FUN to navigate.

Etsy has just about every navigation scheme imaginable: you can search by keyword, by seller, by colors, by who likes what... There's even a "timeline" page that shows you a swirling spiral of images of sellers' most recently updated items.

* Etsy sells some really cool shit.

I always feel kind of let down buying things in stores. Like, somebody could have made something cooler, or like I would have felt better if my money were going somewhere better. All the goods on Etsy are handcrafted by individual sellers, each of whom create their own "storefronts" on the site. And of course, I want to buy just about all of it. :)

* Etsy makes people feel like they belong.

I love window shopping on Etsy. And not just to look at all the cool handmade stuff I can buy. I love reading the seller's profiles and exploring their stores; I love searching through and being part of Etsy's online communities.

Right now, they're hosting a Halloween costume contest. But aside from that, Etsy hosts "The Storque." The Storque is their online newsroom, but also includes information on how buyers and sellers can take the "handmade pledge," become involved in "craftivism," find crafty interactive how-to's, find out about special events, and more.

People who participate in Etsy's world aren't just buyers and sellers; they're a community. Sellers willingly make (and buyers willingly purchase) Etsy-branded items. Like, for fun.

If Etsy were a person, I imagine she would describe herself in much the same way as the individuals that make up the Etsy community would: Creative. Nice. Genuine. Unique.


And they sell some really cool shit.


P.S.--Are we allowed to swear, Jake? Sorry, I'm just keepin' it real.



... I heart Etsy!

Oh I am totally going for this one!


So Flickr is definitely my favorite site ever. I was introduced to it in 2005 I believe, and I have basically gone flickr nuts since then. One of the main reasons that I began to love flickr is it brought some life into the photos I took, and eventually moved up to a DSLR from the really kickbutt photos on the site. Theres an awesome and wide community over there, from proffessionals, to people who just like to share photos, so as an amateur I really have a lot of people to lean on for support and advice. No only that, but they have a large selection of groups that I can join to get advice and exposure for different photos there.

Here's a really awesome example of community. If you remember, October 11th there was a plane crash in New York. I had just found out, and I was looking for photos. At that point I really couldn't find THAT many photos on sites such as CNN, so I turned to the online community for some help. Sure enough, less than an hour after it crashed, photos began to surface on flickr. Just goes to show you how the power of community can beat the reporters sometimes ;)

Another awesome thing about flickr is that they are really good about not pushing the features into your face. I admit, I'm not one to use the Organizr unless I am dealing with a lot of group photos. But thankfully, Flickr lets you deal with your photos without touching those external features such as Organizr and Flickr's Map. They're almost separate applications, that I can use when I need.

One more thing I like, is the really great way they display the Exif Data. I really love looking at EXIF data to see how people took their photos, what they edited in etc. Also with things like Motion blur, I like to check out what their F/stop and shutter was at, which is emphasized as it's a common question.

Final Thing: When I first started shopping for a new camera, Flickr made this painless. Because They take that EXIF data from the photos, they catalog all the pictures taken with each camera. So, you can viwe all the photos by camera, check out which cameras are most popular, and you can even see a graph by the usage of a specific camera.

I could really go on for hours and hours about why I love flickr, but I'm pretty sure you get the point ;).

My nominee would be Alex Billington's http://www.firstshowing.net/. Here's why.
1) Branding: The site's logo is right there in the top corner where it should be. Said logo is completely appropriate and, while a film reel for a movie site isn't exactly unique, it's different enough to leave an impression. That branding is carried over into the "First Showing Experience" icon that's further over on the page.

2) Ads are unobtrusive: The banner ad at the top is built into the logo, not sitting atop it or anything like that. It makes it flow better with that block at the top. The AdSense ads, likewise, are done in the same color scheme as the rest of the site so they don't pop out at you - they're just there, which keeps me from being pulled out of the page mentally.

3) Posts are broken up nicely: Instead of putting the whole post on the front page he puts the first graf and a good-sized picture there with a "Continue reading" prompt. Other sites do this and I don't care for it. But because of the nice wide columns it works. I almost makes me think of an RSS reader where I can scan the headlines and pick out what's important to me.

4) Featured content: The top of the page again shows off the featured content, static pages and other things are good for either navigation or for first time visitors getting to know the site.

I just really like Alex's site both for the content he puts up and for the way he's laid it out. It flows really nicely and brands his blog well.