Art, games, music, zines, and a list of fictional badgers

May 3, 2024 6:30 AM

The blogging platform Cohost (previously) has launched a new section: Artist Alley, where members pay to advertise their podcasts, zines, art, games, and other creations (many of which are free to enjoy). Or sometimes members advertise just to play around - the "#doing a bit" tag is replete with Rickrolling, "Hey check out this picture of a pileated woodpecker I took", a silly survey, etc. Artist Alley is "a take on user-to-user ads we feel good about — a dedicated space which users can access to see promotions from other users, like an artist alley at a convention" and "a revenue product" for Cohost, which had a poor financial forecast in March which has since improved.
posted by brainwane (6 comments total)

Some MeFites may not know that we have a kind of similar thing: the MeFi Mall where (for free) MetaFilter members can link to things we make and sell online. Just text and links (no graphics). We have often promoted it toward the end of the calendar year, when many users are shopping for gifts, but it's available year-round. More in MetaTalk.
posted by brainwane at 6:35 AM on May 3 [7 favorites]

I've been browsing the Artist Alley since it launched and have been impressed by the diversity of projects and such there. The "doing a bit" tag is the most fun (and the one I'm most likely to use myself in the future; I currently don't have any projects I feel the need to advertise). Artist Alley overall seems to be fairly popular, and I hope it helps shore up Cohost's finances a bit.
posted by May Kasahara at 7:39 AM on May 3

cohost is Social Media Done Right (inasmuch as social media can ever be good at all). The site is designed to be less rage-inducing, less addicting, and higher in content quality than anything else out there. You can't see who is following whom, which keeps on-site drama lower. You can't @-mention people. Numbers are obscured from the UX--posts don't have numbers of likes/shares, accounts don't have a total number of followers. If more than one person likes or shares your post, the notification page says "Several pages liked your post" instead of a number (spawning an inside joke about popular posts "doing severals").

The upshot of these design decisions is that account discovery can be difficult. It's harder for stuff to go viral. It's harder to explain to people what cohost is and what it's for.
posted by MetaFilter World Peace at 8:32 AM on May 3 [2 favorites]

cohost's finances seem to be an absolute mess so I hope they can survive, I really like the site.
posted by simmering octagon at 10:00 AM on May 3

I put something in there; my ad has since expired. But it did drive a lot of people to what I wanted to. I didn't make that much, since it's pay what you want, but I was happy with the download numbers. Would do it again.

Like MeFi, I give Cohost a good chunk of money a month because I want it to survive. I've found a community on Cohost, I rarely ever stumble on rage bait, because it doesn't benefit anyone. Like Tumblr, what are you going to get from that? Clout??

The upshot of these design decisions is that account discovery can be difficult. It's harder for stuff to go viral. It's harder to explain to people what cohost is and what it's for.

I really do think that, like MST3K, the right people will find this. You curate your experience, leave comments if you like something, if someone annoys you, mute them and move on, and at a certain point you catch up with where you ended and you're free to do anything else. It's refreshing.
posted by gc at 12:51 PM on May 3 [2 favorites]

By the way, logged-in Cohost users can also read ads within Artist Alley that are marked for people 18 years old or older (such as things involving nudity), and can filter whether we want to read them or not. (Cohost community guidelines, ad guidelines.) I think non-registered users can't access those ads.
posted by brainwane at 6:34 AM on May 4