My Favorite Social Networking Site (gather.com)

Member Name: K466

Product:	gather.com
Date:	05/06/09 (63 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy to use, You can earn money, they can pay through PayPal, It's fun

Disadvantages: Only US members can cashout at the moment, this should change in the future; you might get addicted

What is Gather?
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Gather is a social networking site that pays you points for participation. The main functions are submitting content (posts, photos, and videos) and rating and commenting on other people's content.

Signing Up

Before you can use Gather, you must sign up. The process is simple; all you need to do is provide a user name, your real name, an e-mail address and password. Your user name is used to make your web address, for instance, mine is K466, and so my address is http://k466.gather.com. After sign up, you will receive a confirmation e-mail with a link you must use to activate your account.


Site Layout
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After activating the account, you will be able to go to your profile and enter your profile picture and "about me" information'. It is very flexible and you can put as much or as little as you like. I recommend uploading a picture so that people will have a face to associate your content with.

I have found Gather easy to navigate. You have four tabs on the very top:

* My Gather: This takes you directly to your page. I use this button a lot so I can see how many points I have and so I can see the timeline of recent content posted by my friends.
* People: Find people on Gather
* Groups: Find different groups on Gather
* Explore: When you put your mouse over this button, a 'menu' pops up underneath it so you can go explore posts, photos, and videos; there is also the share button which you can use to post you own content.

On your My Gather page, you will see a box in the middle which shows you profile picture, your current total points, and has a few links for common tasks. Below that you will see a timeline of all recent activity by your friends.

Directly beneath the banner advertisement on the top of your My Gather page (or anyone else's page), there is a bar titled either My Gather (if it's your page) or (username).gather.com, (another member's page). Below it are the links which you use to access the user's profile, their friends and groups, and their content archives.

At the very bottom of the page you will find links to common stuff like Terms of Service, Community guidelines, About Gather, etc.

Advertisements

While advertisements are very important to some sites- it's often where the revenue to pay members comes from- they are also an annoyance to some of us. Gather does have a moderate number of advertisements, usually a banner at the top of the page and a few on the side. Sometimes the advertisements are Gather related; other times they are third party. For me they don't get in the way to much.


Groups
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Groups are an important part of Gather. A group is a 'membership club' on Gather for people of similar interests. Anybody can start a group, and that group can be public, private, or only open to invitations. Groups can be on any topic as well. For example, there are several groups related to Swag Bucks, where Swag Bucks members post content related to Swag Bucks. There is a Florida group, where you can post anything related to the state of Florida; there is a Points Generator group' where you can post anything, the goal is to get more points. I could go on and on; there are probably thousands of groups.

Why are Groups important?

The more groups you join, the more you can post your content to. This greatly increases the chances of your content being viewed; and that's of course one way that you get more points. Some groups are moderated, others are not. Either way, it is important to only post content to a group if the topic fits the group. For instance, you would not want to post a picture of New York in the Florida group.

Creating a Group

I have started one group- for Ciao Members on Gather. It was very easy to set up- it takes less than 10 minutes. You have to enter basic info on what your group is about. There are plenty of settings and overall I think it is very flexible for any type of group you want to make.


Posting Content
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Articles

Click the share a Post button to make a written post. Write whatever you want, whether it is about the St. Louis Arch, your vacation last summer, your plans for the day, or a review of a product. Gather has an excellent text editor. It is just as good as what's at blogger.dom or any good forum. You can also insert pictures and even You Tube videos in your posts! After you finish writing and uploading any pictures, select which groups you want to post it too. While it is not required that you post it to a group, you will need too in order to get more views. The more, the merrier. Just remember to post your content to groups which. You can save your work as a draft or post it immediately.

Pictures

Posting pictures and videos works almost the same as posting articles. Since the pictures are displayed with a maximum width of less than 500 pixels, I recommend you resize them before posting, so they do not take as long to upload. After the pictures are uploaded, you can assign them tags and captions. Not everyone puts captions on their photos, but I recommend that you do- it will make your content more interesting. Pictures can be posted to groups just like posts. Be sure to stick with uploading your own pictures- you are not allowed to upload copyright protected pictures.

Videos

You can upload videos, up to 100 MB. I rarely see videos longer than two minutes however. Most are 30 seconds or less. It is a lot like posting pictures, it will just take longer to upload. Most common video formats are accepted, including AVI, FLV, MPG, MPEG, MOV, and WMV, or ASF, and WAV, or MP3 audio files.


Some Rules to Remember:
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* No referral links in posts. Though it would be awesome if we could put our referral links everywhere, that's not how you play the game at Gather. I like this rule as it does reduce spam on Gather. After all, Gather is not a place to just advertise yourself. However, you can put a phrase in like "Message me if you want to be my referral". This is an effective way to draw in a few referrals. However, you should not do this too often or it will look like you are just there to beg for referrals.
* Don't publish copyright protected material.
* Don't spam on Gather. There are many ways to spam, like posting spammy comments, or sending spammy messages to friends.
* Read the Gather Guidelines page once in a while to keep yourself up to date.


Earning Money
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The Points System

Gather pays in points. The points are then redeemable for gift cards, or even better, PayPal! Exactly how you earn points is unclear; Gather has those secrets locked up just like myLot does. What is clear, though, is that you earn points for participation. This includes viewing, rating, and commenting on content. I have found that I earn much less during days that I do not log in; whereas I earn 50-100+ points on days that I am very active. How many points you earn is up to YOU. Also, the more content you put on Gather, the better the chance for it to be viewed, which will also earn you points.

The Rewards

1 point= $0.016 (about 1 pence)
1,565 points= $25 (about 16 pounds)

One thing that makes this place stand out from other social networking sites is the rewards. Now just like any other honest, reliable website, you aren't going to get-rich-quick at Gather; but if you put forth a good effort you will get fair pay. I have read advice from one member there that really racks up the points without compromising her content's quality. She manages to earn $100-150 per month. However, for the rest of us $25 a month will be a more reasonable monthly goal. Some people will even find that difficult- and certainly a new member should expect to earn a little less until they get used to the site and have created a good base of content.
The rewards are mostly gift cards, including some for Target, Amazon, and Starbucks. You can even get $25, $50, or $100 sent to your PayPal account (the best reward in my opinion!)

Earning Points

To get points, just start viewing content and if you wish, leave ratings and comments. For new members, I recommend that you go look at and rate 20 pictures for a start. You will probably see 4-8 points appear in your account within about 1 hour.
You not only get points for viewing other people's content, but you also get points when they view yours. So, it is advisable to have interesting content. For instance, when posting an album of pictures, leave the blurry pictures out.

Tips for more Points

* Watch a lot of videos. I've been told these give the most points. Looking at a lot of photos also gets you a lot of points. Posts get you the least, probably because it takes longer to read them and make your comments if you have any.
* Join and post to a lot of groups, especially those geared towards earning more points.
* Add a lot of friends- that way your stuff shows up in their timeline.
* Don't do too much Gather-ing at once. I've read of some people that get bored from trying to earn a lot of points and they end up taking long breaks.
* Give thoughtful comments to other people's content. They will be more likely to check out your stuff.


Referral Program
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Each Gather member has an invite link and access to Gather banners to put on their web pages and such. However, I contacted the Gather support team and they told me you don't get any points for referring people to the program. I guess you could say that was a slight disappointment but it does not spoil the party.


Comparison with other Social Networking sites
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* MySpace: I have not used MySpace, so I can only assume Gather is better, since MySpace doesn't pay you.
* Facebook: While Facebook is good, Gather is better. I think Gather is easier to navigate, has more options (especially for text posts), and of course Gather PAYS!
* Twitter: Twitter is a unique website; I would say Gather can't quite replace it. In fact one advantage about Twitter is that there are no advertisements. However, you can't posts pictures, long articles, or videos at Twitter, and of course Twitter doesn't pay, so Gather is still my number one pick, Twitter is my second.
* MyLot: Unlike the above, myLot does pay; but unfortunately it pays peanuts. You are paid per post at myLot, whereas on Gather you get paid per view you receive and for the pages you view. MyLot is also very limited, as you can't post videos, and you can't put pictures in your posts. To make it worse, you can't edit or delete your stuff at myLot.
* Yuwie. Someone on Gather invited me to Yuwie, which is a fairly new social networking site that pays. I've read that Yuwie is very much like MySpace, only with the added payments. Yuwie has an excellent referral program that goes 10 levels deep. In fact, the referral program is so good it almost looks like an unsustainable pyramid scheme. Yuwie pays its members through ad revenues, so there are a lot of ads there. So far, I like Gather's layout better than Yuwie.

If you can't already tell, I think Gather beats all the above by far; second place goes to Twitter in my opinion.


Gather is not Perfect
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While I have a lot of praise for Gather, I can also point out some areas they can improve on.

* You can only have one website in your profile; I would prefer to have at least 3.
* At the moment, you cannot edit your comments. The only way to change them is to delete it and start over.
* You cannot change your ratings.
* Only US members can redeem points. In their FAQ section, Gather says they are working towards changes so that members form all countries will be able to redeem. Since your points don't expire, you may be able to redeem them in the future as they improve their points program.


Personal Experience
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I joined on March 16, 2009. At first, I did not understand how to earn points, so I was pretty inactive there. About a month later I began to realize the potential and since I have made a point to spend time there daily. By early May I was averaging 30 points a day, putting in one hour or so a day. I'm making money online at about 35 different sites- and honestly I can say Gather pays a lot more for my time than most PTC sites. Since there is no limit to how many points you can earn in a day, there are some great possibilities with Gather. In the near future I hope to be making at least $50 (about 32 pounds) a month at Gather.

Should You Join Gather?

Gather is a great website, and it has many possibilities. Is Gather for you? Here are some pointers:

* If you want to join a social networking site, Gather is on par with Facebook or Twitter in my opinion. There may not be games like there are on Facebook, but there are contests. The flexibility of the content you can post should make up for any short falls. Even better, you GET PAID to use the site! As far as I'm concerned, Gather beats Facebook big time! You and your friends or family can always have private groups, posts, photos and videos and still earn for your participation. I don't think it gets better than that.
* Unless you are a really addicted myLot member, you probably will enjoy Gather more, and you might even leave myLot altogether.
* If you use the web to communicate with family and friends, why not switch over to Gather? You can make a private group just this and earn points too.
* If you are looking for an honest way to make real money online- join Gather. If I took the time I spend at some other sites, and put it towards Gather instead, I would be making more money. If I only knew this ahead of time... there are a lot of sites I would not have wasted my time at.
* If you enjoy blogging, Gather is something to check out. It won't have the same layout as your typical blog, but if you have a lot to say you're bound to do well with your posts.


Conclusion
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I strongly recommend Gather... take time to learn the site, and enjoy the rewards!

Thanks for reading! This review is posted on other sites including Ciao.com, Bukisa and my blog, (www.onlineapproved.blogspot.com) under username K466 or my real name.

Summary: I should have joined this site a long time ago!