alivenotdead features

So, I was thinking about what features alivenotdead could have which might be of interest to me and how I use it, so I thought I'd write a few down here and see what people think.

Basically I use alivenotdead as an artist in hopes of finding people who might like my work, but also as someone who has actually hired a handful of the artists here.  I'm also looking to find new artists and be a part of artist and art related discussions.

These are some ideas which might aid that.

The first two involve the idea that member can "tag" certain blogs of interest.   The first idea is that everyday, a user can tag ONE blog as their favorite (but only after viewing 10 blogs per day, so it's actually base don people who are reading various blogs and not just one with one option).  Then the collection of these would be evaluated and on the home page there would be one space dedicated to what alivenotdeadmembers are most reading and enjoying.   However, that might create a sort of Lowest Common Denominator result.   So, the second idea is simlar, but it's on your own homepage it is just the one which your friends have most selected so that it might have an interest to you.

A similar and related idea is just a way to "share with a friend" - sort of how you can share a post on your wall on facebook with someone else by clicking "share" - that way if I read an article I might think someone I know would like, I can share it to them.

I would also like to see "groups" added.  One of the  very best social sites ever was tribe.net in it's heyday.  The reason was simply that the way "tribes" could be set up (which were basically "groups" was very simple and intuitive and a very prominent part of the homepage experience so it was quite natural to see if you had any new posts in your group of interest.   I realize we have forums and I realize forums ARE on the home page on the left side, but somehow the difference between a forum which sort of gets lost and a interest group is that the interest group is like a a club house that is always there and doesn't fall down over time if other topics supersede it and so it's always relevant and not forgotten.   Generally what happens is that a few of the groups end up being popular and quite well attended.  Other aren't  and they die out and the host can eventually just drop them.   This would be of interest though in the community discussion and community building efforts.

As for the home page features, I would most like to see things about artists which are new like new work being posted... I don't care much to see personal things like someone's neat lunch or trip to where-ever... Seeing someone's process of work is interesting...  Bottom line, I would like to see things which actually draw me to someone's art and artistic process and I'd want the highlighted blogs to help me find them.  (I have noticed an improvement of these by the way in the last couple weeks or so, but I would still move more away from vacation-type stuff as that seems to be the agenda of a different kind of site.)

Here's a little thing.  I think if someone is your fan, you should be able to view their friends and fan limited types of posts.  Just because... it would be good to know who is responding to you without having to friend them and later discover they're a nut :)

I think it would be interesting for other communities (like Los Angeles) to try to make even a larger effort to have local-based gatherings... but I suppose that is just up to the folks in the local areas.  It seems like HK has a lot of alivenotdead social scene and it'd be interesting to see if that could happen here.

Basically, alivenotdead is growing so much, it's hard for me to find artists around the world I might respond  to professionally and might like personally and I'm looking of ways to discover and interact with them and these were my ideas for that.