Today's theme for Multiply Appreciation Week is My "Ah Ha!" Moment on Multiply -- The day when I realized that I really love this place.

I came to Multply from Orkut after being invited to make the switch by Cindy, who I'd met in the INTJ group over there.  Orkut is a group-centric site run by Google (without any of the sophistication, penash, or insight that characterizes most of Google's product line). At the time (I don't know if it's still this way), the site was by invitation only -- which promised to make it a safer online venue to hang out with friends and make new ones.

After having been on Orkut for a year or so, I grew to have a loved/hate relationship with the place.  I loved the conversations that I had been able to get into with people when I first joined, but I grew to hate the trolls, the silly "Bad server.  No donut for you!" messages, and the increasingly discussionless discussions.  What? Discussionless discussions.  That's what I said.

I found that when everyone joins a group because they believe "A", then when a conversation is started, generally the first person posts something along the lines of "I believe 'A'."  Everyone else agrees, "Yeah, so do I."  "I do too."  "A huh."  Since we'd clustered ourselves along lines of agreement, there simply wasn't much to discuss.  We could share information, but that never went far.  After awhile, the conversations got more interesting, but only because the trolls started most of them.  "I believe B."  "Well, I don't.  What are you doing in this group anyway?  Go away."  There'd be a brief pause and the troll would chime in again with, "I believe B."  It wasn't a conversation.  It was more like a game of, "How long can you stand the troll?"

So when I moved to Multiply, I was a little thrown by the whole personal site thing.  Since I was used to moving around in a group-centric world, I gravitated towards the groups.  But, despite the fact that Multiply has groups, the focal point of all activity tends to still be the personal pages.  So I started experimenting, adding a bit here and a picture there.  Before I knew it, I was in several great conversations with the likes of D and J, who *gasp* didn't always agree with me.  It was a breath of fresh air to finally discuss things with people who thought differently because we hadn't aligned with each other according to affinities.  (I should add that the Inbox (then called the Explore page) was also instrumental in being able to keep up with conversations.  Orkut had something vaguely similar, but no where near as powerful.)

Not only was I finally having the discussions that I had longed for on Orkut, but Multiply had none of the troll issues that Orkut had.  Because the conversations take place on personal sites, and the "owners" of those sites can control who is involved in the conversations (by setting privacy controls), trolls simply didn't have an inch to squeeze a big toe into.

It took several months before this finally all jelled in my brain, leading me eventually to post the New Users Guide to Using Multiply (the pictures appear to have disappeared), which in turn led me to start the New to Multiply group.  Though I've readily jumped into many new social networking sites to see how they compare, I have yet to find one that I believe is as well put together as this one.

Yesterday was the first day of Multiply Appreciation Week, in which people from all over Multiply wrote on what they appreciated most about the site.  Here's links to several of those posts:

Bindra	Missingbits	Psychotic2	Philsgal7759
dojnd	Megwithsocks	Mft39	Revelations and Fables
Debbims	Laura1may	Ullangoo	Seanymph3
Onlymissy	Hanzrobin	Dantcer	Xchips
Epistling	Everdred	Tina34	Debmom
Heathercheryl	Ginsing7	Afterinfo	Shearoc
Ladyharley	Cinnamonburns	Siscee	Imacountrygirl
Guest4second	Acrafty1	Jenny3jellybean	Eidsbox
Brendainmad	Westofeden	Missthemed (made a theme)	Sumaxmail
jnamakulit	naomykairos	Gelictagu

As Multiply Appreciation Week continues, you can still write about what you like most here at Multiply, but Dantcer and I got in a little huddle last night and decided that it might be fun to have themed posts for every day of this week.  So if you want to join in on the fun, feel free to post something for any of the following themes:

Friday (18 January 2008): The beginning of Multiply Appreciation Week, this day has also been called Bandwidth Friday.  Many people posted their thoughts on what they like about Multiply.
Saturday (19 January 2008): The coolest/best thing that's ever happened to me because of Multiply.
Sunday (20 Jan 08): The weirdest thing that's ever happened to me because of Multiply.
Monday (21 Jan 08): (Like Monday's... only different.) The weirdest thing I've ever seen/heard/encountered because of Multiply.
Tuesday (22 Jan 08): My "Ah Ha!" Moment on Multiply -- The day when I realized that I really love this place.
Wednesday (22 Jan 08): My friends on Multiply. (How you met them. Or what you love about them. etc.)
Thursday (22 Jan 08): Without Multiply I would be... (How has Multiply changed your life?)"

As Dantcer cautioned me, please don't say that a certain person is the weirdest thing you've seen on Multiply because that would just be rude.  Appreciation isn't about being rude, but about being thankful. Let's share some of the things that we have enjoyed that we might well not have ever come across without Multiply.

To share your posts with others, add a link to them in the replies section under this post.

To add your appreciation post to the list that dantcer's collecting, click here.

Start:	Jan 18, '08 09:00a
End:	Jan 25, '08

There have been some recent squabbles on Multiply regarding changes made to the music function. As a result, some people called for a boycott of Multiply on January 18th (today). I replied to the idea of a boycott in another thread, saying:

Capital Records, among others, are upset because people are downloading copyrighted music via Multiply and other music sharing sites. I don't get the point of boycotting Multiply when it's the record companies people should be boycotting.

So Linda came up with the idea to have a Multiply Appreciation Day (which quickly turned into a week) in which people can post what they appreciate about Multiply. The links will be collected and forwarded to the staff.

If you would like to write an appreciation to be forwarded, post the lnk here.

I've written my own appreciation here. Why on another account? Because as part of Multiply appreciation day, we're trying to gather as many page views as we can (to show our support) and perhaps even some ad click throughs. My gold account status is grandfathered in, so I don't have ads on this account. I'll be spending a fair part of my day refreshing some pages over in my side account.

Another way to show your support for Multiply is to download the Alexa Toolbar. It sits on the bottom of the page in the space where greasemonkey, and several other firefox add-ons sit. (Alexa also works for browsers other than firefox, but I don't know where the toolbar resides on those browsers.) It's very low impact on your page.