From the Desk of Devin Jeanel March 15, 2008: The continuing presentation of Devin's vision. At the beginning of the year, I told you how that I would be sharing more and more of my vision for the site during the year. Last month, I announced that Starlite was going to be entering the publishing arena. This month, I would like to give you a little more insight into the vision of how both the publishing will work and all the pieces that will go around it.

I posted my first poem here in 2001, but I know we have some people who have been here for much longer. From the very beginning, the thing I've always loved about Starlite was the friendly atmosphere. Starlite poets reach out to new users freely. It is very similar to a small town where everyone knows everyone by first name. You may have heard me describe it as the Cheers atmosphere. In the popular TV series, when Norm (one of the regulars) entered the bar, he would pause until everyone called him by name. I loved the theme song, Where Everybody Knows Your Name. At Starlite, we have this atmosphere; we need to keep it.

When I look into the future, I believe we must keep this closeness, but I see not just one main group, but lots of groups, where people can belong. I don't want to break apart the old groups we have now. I want to create more places for people to connect. This is one of the reasons I have kept the old challenges going. The old challenges are well established and are a staple for some very important social groups. These challenges are important to me. In fact, I just asked Gracie_B to help out with the moderation of Catching a Soar Star to ensure that it continues. We need to make sure we keep supporting the existing social groups. Still, if we try to add too many people into any of the current groups, they can get very crowded. A person can only read and comment on so many poems. We can only support and participate in the activities of so many friends. So it is critical that we help the social networks to grow and connect members together in different groups. Some of us like inspirational poetry, some dark poetry; some like love poetry, and some like all kinds of poems; some like old challenges like Follow The Dream; some like to compete on a fresh challenge idea just launched. We may gather around different things, but we are all Starliters. We are all family.

I also see Starlite as a place to have fun. I see all kinds of stories of road trips... cookouts... and flying to the moon. We have fun. I think this is another critical part of Starlite. It should be encouraged and enhanced. So as we progress to the future, let's find more of these types of activities and make them easier with the new technologies. Let's brainstorm about what would make them more fun and more accessible. How can we build real time collaboration tools to help facilitate these fun activities?

Back to the basics, Starliters are first and foremost... POETS. They come from all over the world to connect, to share. As poets, most of us want to be read. For some, we are happy with comment feedback. For others, we are trying out the latest poem to work out the kinks. Still others are looking to increase our fan base and reading community. Starlite is used for lots of things. We need to continue to provide an atmosphere for these varied groups of people to connect and to share together.

The final part of the future is the publishing angle. This is one of the most exciting parts of the future for me. I see a world where Starlite will be publishing books. Starliters should have the ability to see their poems in print without worrying about scams that dominate the Internet today. Starliters should NOT have to pay anything to create a book. Money should always flow to the author. I see the first step on this journey as The Best of Starlite Series: Love Poetry. This book is intended to be the best poems of Starlite. I know that Albert had this dream, but because of the disagreements about the selection process it was never completed. I fully intend to complete this book during 2008.

To find the best poems, I have created the new Challenges where poems are submitted by Starliters and then voted on by Starliters. This is the fairest way that I know to find the best poems. It enables every Starliter to have a voice. We track every vote submitted by a user to a challenge, and the system automatically calculates the winner. Further, we monitor each challenge carefully for any suspicious voting patterns. So if you want to have a say, then vote. Please don't say that the winners are always the same when you didn't even vote. For most challenges, the winner is selected by a margin of one or two votes. The winners of the selected challenges (signified by the heart) are guaranteed an offer to be included in the book. If the author declines the offer, the runner up will be given the offer.

I'm happy to announce the challenges have been very successful with almost every challenge reaching the full mark (20 challenges). You have given us many suggestions for future challenges. We have implemented the vast majority of the suggestions offered. Winners are recognized with their pictures posted on three different pages. The winning poem is available for all to read. We will eventually have a system of challenges for different levels of mastery allowing for challenges to more closely match one's challenge experience. As far as the vision of Starlite, these challenges are in the critical path. Since these challenges are the source of poems for the first book, it is essential that they succeed. So far, they have exceeded our most ambitious dreams.

After the books are published this year, I want to start making a publishing service available to Starliters. A key point here is Starliter should NOT have to pay to have their books available. They deserve the ability to have their books in print. In addition, I see us doing more than printing poetry books for the author. I see us allowing our readers in the general public to build and print custom books from the poems available. We have over 800,000 poems on this site. Dream with me and see people, both poets and readers, selecting their favorite poems on Starlite and request them to be dynamically put together into a custom book. This type of system would require two things: 1) Starlite poets would have to make a poem available for custom book publishing. 2) Royalties would be split between the poets used in the book. Can you see yourself building a book for mother's day with poems from all your favorite poets, maybe one from Morning_Song, one from Rose, maybe a couple from OTS, and one from Bubby and on and on. With a click of a button, the system would formatted these poems into a custom book When someone buys the book, each poet gets their royalty share for the use of their poems. The reader gets the perfect custom book, and the poets get paid.

The technology is possible for this to occur now. Of course there are lots of issues, but I wanted to share the vision of the kind of services that I see Starlite producing in the next 18 months. However, it all starts with being able to put out our first book. Without the first book, all the publishing dreams will not happen.

It is important to note this is not a get rich quick scheme. I'm laying out a honest plan of where I plan to take Starlite with a few road signs of how we can get there. It is by no means complete. For example, I could see Starlite sponsoring its own ECARD site in the near future. I am a big fan of any addition that helps our poets get better read. If an idea like this becomes feasible and it adds to the vision. then I could easily see it being implemented. I am open to any ideas that will help Starliters get better read.

Now, I know that many of the decisions have traditionally been made via public discussion and debate. Can you imagine trying to move a community as large and diverse as Starlite into the site that I have illustrated to you if every decision has to be decided via group consensus? From Albert's experiences, I see that he had to back off a lot of his dreams. For me to fulfill his dream, which is also now my dream, I have to be a strong leader. I will make the hard calls and stand by them. Unfortunately, I won't make everyone happy all the time. In fact, there may be times when NO ONE is happy. Sometimes, it is necessary to go through those times. Look for the things that you enjoy and don't worry about something new that may not appeal to you. The guy next to you might like it. Sometimes, these are stepping stones to something that you may really like. Either way, please know that I care about you, and I care about Starlite.

Bottom line is that Starlite is growing in members and in choices. Almost every day there is something new on the table. As we move forward, we will add something for everyone! We are adding more future friends to the site at an incredible rate. We are being better indexed by the search engines which will bring an increasing numbers of readers into the site. We will have lots of fun as we enjoy the warmth of a place where everyone knows your name. So come and escape into this virtual world. Let your friends celebrate your birthday in the birthday club. Join your friends and celebrate their accomplishments in Celebrations Hall.

We will also give you a chance to participate in the great variety of opportunities such as publishing. New features will continue to multiply adding additional adventures. We will continue to enable you to do things like link to other poets as friends, comment on their poems, bookmark your favorites and all the other tools that you have today. Soon we will be implementing something that I'm calling a collaboration engine to allow groups (two or more poets) to work on a poem together in the same workspace.

Starlite is getting nothing but better. Together, we will be doing some great things.

Devin Jeanel
Starlite Poetry


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