Improving Studios for internet clubs & gatherings
We've made some big changes to Studios, which we first launched a few months back, described in our earlier post, Building Studios.
Studios are a place for groups to organize activity happening across many Spaces — a homepage for a collection of projects or sessions.
Much of the "why" we initially wrote still holds, but the "what" is becoming more clear, though still a work in progress :)
Many of these changes / additions were inspired by exploring a use case around "internet gatherings" — people doing things together online, not exactly live events, but in a shared environment with shared intention.
What's New
About page
The Studio creator can add a description / readme and header image, to provide more context for what a Studio's all about — useful as both a welcome message for participants, and for visitors browsing.
write a README for your studio, to give people a sense of what it's all about!Space list
Members can add Spaces to a Studio, and view all Spaces, with presence indicators to give a sense of activity across the Studio. We wanted to focus on exploring each other's projects, and make the whole page feel like a nice gallery — useful not only during a gathering or cohort, but before and after.
browse spaces from all your studio mates, and see what they're working on right now!Member list
Member cards contain a Studio-specific bio + list of each person's Space(s), to give a better sense of who's participating. Studio creators can invite people along with a custom welcome message people see when they join.
write a bio, see who's in your studio, and check out what they're working on!Space viewer
A way to browse Spaces in the context of the Studio, via a carousel from the Space headers so you don't have to click back to the main Space list to navigate. We wanted to encourage quickly browsing through Spaces to explore and see what's new.
Studiomates + commenting
People in a shared Studio can comment on things in each other's Spaces, but not edit them. We wanted to play with ways of engaging with each other's projects, without the pressure to directly collaborate on everything.
Studios as Internet Clubs
We're excited about Studios that feel like a shared workshop — places to work alongside others in a way that feels good; to get inspiration and feedback and shared energy.
Right now we're particularly interested in Studios powering a sort of internet club where people work on their own projects, posting updates on a regular cadence, with a short newsletter to periodically share what everyone's up to.
We've got some experiments cooking, a few things we think will be fun contexts for testing this idea further. We'd love to chat if you're looking for a new way to host an online club or asynchronous gathering. More soon!