Welcome to Gaia! ::

Hello everyone! Ask the admin is back after a day off on MLK. I was actually traveling that day, talking to someone who could potentially bring more anime content to Gaia. Hope everything goes through. :O

Will we be getting new housing items soon? It's been forever since that Egyptian set... But I do love the new clothing items. heart

And how do you get rid of hiccups? I've tried holding my breath, drinking water, eating peanut butter... But I still have them and they're starting to hurt.

Lanzer:

1) Gaia used to adhere mainly to a fantasy/rpg/anime etc base, rather than a more general social base. Do you think Gaia's now big enough to allow the general site browsing to please the majority of users, with certain more isolated areas of the site being built specifically for more specialized groups? I don't see a lot of "hobby" boards up, but ones that do exist already are those such as art and writing.


2) Unlike sites such as myspace, facebook, etc., where socialization and connecting with people is the main goal, Gaia Online also allows users to interact with the site and have a permanent place in Gaian History. Do you consider Gaia to be a Social Site, or do you also agree with the concept of a Community Site?


3) Gaia's popularity was actually going DOWN in 2006. Any reason why you believe this was?

I noticed that starting late 2006, which is when I assume you began hiring more employees and eventually had Craig join the team, Gaia's Popularity suddenly began to spike upwards. It's interesting to note that Gaia's now bigger, but also more stable, no?


4) Some may say that Gaia Online is now less friendly than it used to be. I believe this is because the GD has been lost as a general friendly portal for new Gaian Users. If you think about it, where DO new Gaian Users go now to communicate with other users as well as the rest of the site? Look at the GD. I don't find it appropriate in a large part for more casual discussion.

It's almost as though Gaia now expects users to find a home here on Gaia before they even join sad


5) Sponsors play a large part in what the users see as the direction Gaia's going in. Is there any chance that Gaia will open up new channels for sponsors that would ease Gaians worries about how sponsors affect the site, as well as open up the opportunity to have more sponsors, including those on a lower budget? Opening sponsor forums, a sponsor channel for products, and an API for interacting with the site are possible solutions.


6) On the topic of making site channels easier to access for sponsors, as well as having featured user content, are there any plans to expand the way users can interact with the site and other users, in regards to user-created content? Flash movies, avi art, banners, etc, being sold in a site-managed marketplace for user-created content rather than the forums, possibly?

Would this include a way to link to this site content officially, to prevent scamming and otherwise, as well as ways to release content directly to a user-content system?


7) Any chance for site-header ONLY items, for at least a temporary amount of time until an area of the site can be used to show them off? Say, like the orphans from the event. I know a lot of people would be interested in these kinds of items - Even if they can be viewed only by the user who has them (possibly only temporarily).


8) I saw the MochiAds competition for Game Development! REALLY excited about that. I wish I knew about this sooner. Perhaps I would have been able to learn Flash, Actionscript, and make a game in time rofl Of course, that wouldn't happen. Do you plan to continue with this trend of letting outside-developers work with Gaia? Is working with Gaia complex? - How much more knowledge is necessary other than being able to make a game work with MochiAds?


Thanks biggrin
Pritchard

PS: What do you think of my mad rhymes?:

Ba-Ba-Ba-Bow, it's Algebra! You otha brothas ain't got it down ya know! I can multiply, and I can divide, polynomials, ... up to degree five!

Stop! Study time! biggrin

You ain't got the groove!
Cuz I've got the moves.
And everybody knows that I'm oh so smooth.

And if you take a strike.
Then I'll step you up.
Now you know what it's like when I've had enough.

Then I'll turn the tables.
Then I'll take you down.
Next thing you know you're spinnin all around.

Cuz you ain't got the groove,
Cuz I've got the moves.
And everybody knows that I'm oh so smooth!

Stop! Study Time! biggrin

Live And Die

We're really working towards having a solid release schedule, just like real companies out there. biggrin Though today we're still small and fast moving to the point where one day we can be testing a release that should be ready to go, next minute QA comes back with a big nasty bug and we have to delay things for another day... gonk

As for wild west items, it'll only be a matter of time until we release such a set. We have enough cowboys around in the office, I'm sure it'll not be over-looked. smile

Hey Lanzer. Hope the travels went well.

My only question this week:

I had heard somewhere about a contest about the flash game developers. Any idea how that's going so far?