What is MaineCreates.com?
Maine Creates is an online community for the creative people of Maine to connect with one another and build new relationships (networking), to promote your business (marketing), to view what others are developing (search-find-connect) and to exchange and collaborate on new ideas.
What are we building?
A digitial marketplace for the creative people of Maine to connect their products, services, people and ideas to the world.
What is happening at MaineCreates.com right now?
- connections are being made using the search function “creative works” looking for people that create similar types of works.
- a member was pleased to find a new online art magazine in Maine and will be approaching them concerning a partnership.
- a gallery owner and a new artist are doing business as a result of a MaineCreates.com online networking work connection developed. See my Blog for What's Happening at MaineCreates.com and read the story.
- an art organization in Western Maine was able to view what another art center (Schoodic Arts for All) in Winter Harbor is providing in workshops and programs.
- people are viewing what others are creating and projects they are working on.
Why Should I join and how much does it cost?
MaineCreates.com is a membership-based community and is free to join. You can add a creative profile to the community, upload up to 8 images of your work and highlight your work and current projects all for free. You can connect with other members and build an online network with up to 10 people for free. Your online network includes private messaging to your connections so you can promote and keep your contacts up to date with your work and projects.
We have a $99 LifeTime membership offered for a limited time only. The LifeTime membership includes unlimited connections for life and a creative profile listing for life of the site.
Who can join MaineCreates.com as a creative member? Posted 7/1/08
We have purposely kept the web site open and did not
define who was welcome and who was not at the onset.
We realize this is "abstract thinking." This was done on
purpose as I was not sure on who would use the site and
I wanted to leave it open. I estimated that at 100 members I would have a pretty good idea on who was using the site and how it was being used. As we near 100 members we are starting to define the site. We have recently removed two new profiles as they were
added. We have only had to email two people telling them
that we had to remove them from the web site as their
profile was not "creative" in nature.
In narrowing the membership to a specific target group,
we are moving towards defining Maine Creates members
as creative people that reside in Maine and create a
product, creative service, good, and or provision with
their hands or mind. We have included about 75 creative
economy work classifications so we reach to include all
of Maine's creative people.
When the community starts selling online, new product-
service categories will include "Maine Goods", "Fine Arts," "Handmade Craft," "Homemade Provisions" "Maine Products" and "Creative Services." As we get closer to 100 members and we integrate the selling system the web sites branding and focus will narrow. My mission will not change in that this web site at its core is about changing the lives of people in Maine and to invigorate the creative economy of Maine. I welcome feedback on my comments above. Visit my Blog to comment. The buyers and people that come to the online community
to connect with us and buy from us of course will be welcome and be open to anyone in the world.
How does the Possible Connections feature work? If you use our "default" Possible Connections and do not
"Enable" the new Customized Possible Connection feature,
then the web site checks each members text entered in
My Works, Current Projects, Associations, and your
creative profile information. The systems also checks all
the tags or tagging your enter. The system then looks for
matches in text description and tags with other people's
text descriptions and tags. When the system finds matches
we send that member match to your "Possible Connections" page in your My Profile.
Can I add more than one Creative Profile or multiple profiles? I am having problems adding a 2nd account.
You can add more than one account but you must know the following.
1. You need two different email addresses to join. Your username ID = your email address. You cannot have the same email address for both accounts our system will not enable it.
2. You MUST logout of your 1st account by clicking on the “logout” link on your profile page in the upper right corner, before you try to login to the 2nd account. If you close your browser window and try to log in it will not work, you MUST click the logout button. *Note –we use session based logins and not cookies so after you login our systems “thinks” you are logged in for up to 15 minutes unless you “logout” by clicking the logout button.
If you close your browser and try to log back in immediately our system will think you are the 1st account, unless 15 minutes has passed. We use a “session” based login instead of cookies due to privacy issues, as session logins do not track your movements. In the future we may move to “cookies” based logins. |
