Treasury East Beta

Hi all,

Treasury East Beta is live! Preview it here:

www.etsy.com/treasury/

Treasury East Beta is a testing ground for the future of the Treasury, Etsy's ever-changing, member-curated shopping gallery.

As noted in our last Etsy News email newsletter (sign up here: www.etsy.com/mailinglist/), Etsy Community Council members have had access to Treasury East for a few weeks. We're now "soft launching" Treasury East and making it available to the entire Etsy community as a beta feature. "Beta" means this feature is in active development -- we're actively refining Treasury East and making adjustments based on your feedback and usage.

Treasury East differs from the current Treasury in some important ways:

- Treasury East does not use Flash. No more waiting for lists to load!

- Treasury East is wide. This is a preview of what the new wider version of Etsy will look like, and the new wider front page, coming soon.

- Lists featured on Etsy's front page will now be chosen from Treasury East as well as from Treasury and Treasury West.

- Treasury East has no limits. There is no limit on the number of Treasuries allowed, no limit on the number of Treasuries per user, no limit on the lifetime of Treasuries, no limit on the number of comments allowed!

- Creating a Treasury East list currently requires the copying and pasting of item listing page URLs or listing IDs. This will change, and we are working on ways to make it much easier to add items to lists.

- Your Treasury East lists are currently managed from inside Treasury East. Click "Your Treasuries" to view the lists you've created.

- Rearranging items on a Treasury East list feels like a lot like Etsy's Rearrange Your Shop feature (www.etsy.com/storque/article/4051).

- When items expire, they are removed from any Treasury East list. When items are sold, they remain in Treasury East lists and marked "Sold." You can edit your lists any time.

- Some Community Council members have found it helpful to save their list regularly while creating one. Items open in the same browser window when clicked unless you right-click and specify "Open Link in New Tab" or "Open Link in New Window."

- "Hotness" in Treasury East works a little differently than the way it does in the current Treasury. Because Treasury East lists never expire, time plays a different role. We're actively refining the hotness algorithm and it will get better as more people use Treasury East. Feel free to create lots of lists -- it will make Treasury East stronger and smarter!

Our engineers Wil Stuckey (quiiver), Dan McKinley (mcfunley), Eric Bogs (ericbogs) and Kyle Barry (twokb) have worked hard to build out the infrastructure behind this feature, and this same infrastructure will eventually be used to enable a number of improvements anywhere there’s a list of items: your Favorites, purchases and more. This infrastructure is able to speedily handle vast numbers of collections of items.

Treasury East will grow up to become the new Treasury, and the things we learn during this beta period will be applied to Etsy at large in many different ways.

Here are answers to some questions that have come up recently:

Q: Why are you planning to replace the current Treasury?

A: We all love the current Treasury and all its uniqueness but Etsy is growing and the current Flash-based Treasury was not built to handle a community of our size. We also know that many more people would participate in the creation of Treasuries if given the opportunity, and we want to empower the curators of our marketplace.

Some of the Treasury's "specialness" comes from its scarcity -- getting an opportunity to create one is a game in itself. But we think different game mechanics can emerge as we open the Treasury up to everyone. The Treasury area itself can become a hub for the hottest lists site-wide. Anyone will be able to create Treasuries and anyone will be able to share Treasuries, but only the most active ones will make it to the top of the Treasury main page. We may have lists expire from the main Treasury area but live on elsewhere, such as on your profile. The quality of lists will get even better and more diverse. Treasury East is community-powered -- your feedback and usage will steer the ship!

Q: Will Treasury East lists be chosen for inclusion on Etsy's front page based on "hotness"?

A: No. We have a team of admin who specialize in bringing amazing collections to the front page and elsewhere. Treasury East is simply about enabling more people to curate Etsy. When it comes to the kind of unique, one of a kind items available on Etsy, the human touch in arranging and curating collections of items is critical. We're interested in highlighting great member-curated collections of items in areas throughout the site.

For example, many times when people search on Etsy they don't have a clear idea of what they want (how could they? Etsy is filled with one of a kind items they've never seen before!). Many visitors would love to have someone introduce them to the wonders of Etsy, and show them what kinds of items can be found here. Treasuries can be great for that. It would be even better if you could follow your favorite curators and receive updates when they create new collections. And notifications when your items are included in a Treasury. These are the kinds of things we're thinking about as we map out the future of the Treasury and community curation on Etsy.

Treasury East is the first step. So check it out, have fun, and let us know what you think. Any and all feedback is welcome. We want to create the new Treasury with you.

www.etsy.com/treasury

Thanks,
Sean

Posted at 11:16am Apr 16, 2010 EDT