Here's an excerpt of a Gather.com article by one of my Gather contacts, Edward Nudelman:

On Ratings, Gather Points, and Getting Rich

So what's up with the ratings scheme and all these gather points I'm collecting? Will there be any surprises once we move past the beta format? Gerace says there's lots of new stuff coming. And coming fast. The beta days will soon be over. In fact, and this is inside information, I'm told some time in early February the new website will be unveiled. What can we expect? There are plans to "broaden the types of ratings available, and not just the "quality" of the entire piece depicted by one vote from 1 to 10. For instance, we will soon be able to rate specific aspects within a particular topic, such as humor. For example, was it even funny? Or, for a political piece, did it deal with real aspects of politics, or was it a tirade or a Rant? And those Gather points? Gerace confirms they indeed will be like "mileage points", an explanation given on the site. He further offered that productive and long-standing contributors will be commensurately rewarded with real "cash" equivalences.

The whole article is pretty interesting if you are looking for a good synopsis of Gather. Smart move on the CEO's part to allow some user interaction with the crowd. That kind of thing goes really far in social networking circles.

My earlier interview with Tom Gerace, CEO of Gather.One irritation with Gather is that I can't trackback to this article. I would have liked that capability.