Gather.com: Social Networking Grows Up

(page 2 of 2)

Similarly, blogging site Six Apart's new offering for thirty- and fortysomethings is called Vox. It has a specific use for time-pressed adults, giving them a place to post goings-on in their lives and family photos in one spot, complete with privacy protections (see BusinessWeek.com, 9/25/06, "Six Apart's Booming Blogosphere"). Think of the annual Christmas letter, only interactive and able to be updated on the fly. Six Apart's Executive Vice-President Andrew Anker points out that Vox was in invite-only test mode from June 1 until it opened to the general public on Oct. 24, and already it has 80,000 members—more than Gather has amassed in a year.

Starbucks Infusion

Another challenge: Gather has an unusual—and expensive—way of luring members. It buys pricey TV ads to grab their attention, and then pays users for contributing content to the site. That's likely a big reason the company has raised near $10 million in funding—a lot for a consumer Web site these days and blasphemy in some pockets of the new, interactive Web, where the winners boast minuscule cash-burn rates. "TV is a mistake," says Hoffman, who is also an adviser or investor in sites including Digg.com and Facebook. "My basic rule is nothing works on the Internet if it doesn't have some natural distribution."

Still, Gerace and Kling are sticking to their guns, betting advertisers will pay up for substance. "Name for me one other social-networking site that's having an intelligent debate about health care or Iraq or about the environment," Gerace says.

Indeed, Starbucks picked Gather as its first foray into social-networking marketing. "The site is a medium to connect people and ideas," says Stephanie Bittner, director of marketing for Starbucks. "Starbucks is a place where people go to connect so the concept is very similar." She'd rather pay for a few real conversations than myriad "shout-outs" to friends.

Authoring a New Way

The nontraditional approach certainly resonates with some of Gather's most rabid users, such as Beryl Singleton Bissell. A resident of a tiny town on the north shore of Lake Superior, Singleton Bissell, 67, just published a book she's been working on for some 20 years, titled The Scent of God. Her publishers suggested she join an online community to promote it. Thinking MySpace, she shuddered. "Oh, Lord, I'm not into online communities," she recalls. But she says Gather is far different. The company talked her through setting up a profile, and when she nervously flew to Boston for one of her first readings, the Gather crew showed up with a crowd of users, many of whom she'd been chatting with for months.

For Singleton Bissell, the site is a literary tool as much as anything. She writes essays and regularly reads what about 50 of her closest Gather friends write about a couple of times a week. Her old blog on another site only got a few comments if she was lucky. On Gather, her posts average 30 or 40 comments each. It's helped her promote her book, and she recently won a short fiction contest that Amazon.com sponsored on the site. "It's helped me to think faster and gain more confidence," she says.

Also, she views it as time with friends. At the end of October, she's going on a Gather-sponsored cruise celebrating the site's one-year anniversary. "It's like having a mentor and a family all at the same time," she says.

That may not be as sexy as racking up thousands of friends who leave notes saying they're ROTF LOL, but for Kling, at least, that alone is proof he's onto something.

Lacy is a reporter for BusinessWeek.com in Silicon Valley.