Radostar is a web platform that aims to provide creatives with a simple way to share their work and create a network in their field of activity.
The platform is open, which means anybody can create an account and upload their works.

Three main activities can describe the Radostar platform:

• Share your works – After the signup a member can easily publish his works. A work is a set of pictures and/or videos.
• Connect with people and follow their activity.
• Create groups or participate in groups discussion forums.

As it is important for most creative people to get exposure and recognition, we created the radostar award. Each month a piece of work will be chosen by our guest editors and be featured on the radostar homepage.
All works are not part of the competition by default, so you have to check the box “Yes I want this work to be entered into the competition for a radostar award” to have your works on the guest editors list.

Yes! Of course, radostar is an open platform, anybody can join and share their works.
As a member you can use the invitation tool to keep track of who you invited and check if they joined the platform.

On the homepage click on the “Join Now” button or follow this link

If you want to know about all the works that are added every day on radostar, the best way is to use our main RSS feed you can add it in your favorite RSS reader or use your browser.

As Facebook is now a big part of a lot of people's lives we decided to provide a way for members to connect their radostar account with their Facebook account. The main benefit is:

• to give you the ability to publish your works on your Facebook profile
• and therefore keep your friends updated on what you are doing

There are two ways to do that:

• On signup you can use your Facebook account to create your radostar account, then you will be able to login with your Facebook credentials.
and therefore keep your friends updated on what you are doing
• Directly create your radostar account, you are then able to connect your account with your Facebook account using the FacebookConnect box on your dashboard
  

Once you are logged in, you are redirected to your dashboard (the YOU page). This page gives you:

• shortcuts to the main activities (create works, create groups, invite friends)
• and is also a summary of what is happening in your network (notifications), in your groups and statistics on your profile and works.

The central part of your dashboard displays notifications, in other words this is what is happening in your network and on your works, for example:

• one of your contact creates a new piece of work
• a discussion started in one of your groups
• one of your works has been commented

In the left column, the magazine section provides with the latest news from the platform and not only keeps you informed about the awards and the guest editors but it will also provide articles about all creative fields of activity.

This box allows you to link your radostar profile with your Facebook profile and so you will be able to publish your works on Facebook and keep your friends posted about what you are doing.

To share a new piece of work, you can use the link “Create a work” from your dashboard or use the “You” drop-down menu.
The creation of work happens in two steps:

• Choose a cover and a name. The cover will be used in all listing and its size is limited to 310x150 pixels.
• Add pictures and/or videos, plus some basic information to describe your work and help other people to find it.

You can then preview your work and if you are happy with the result don’t forget to publish it!
Also, if you want to be part of the radostar award competition don’t forget to check the box “Yes I want this work to be entered into the competition for a radostar award” to have your work on the guest editors list.

During step two of creating work, you can add pictures and or videos. As radostar does not provide an uploading and encoding tool for videos, you are able to add videos that you have already posted on other services.
At the moment radostar accepts videos from Youtube, Vimeo, Google Video, Viddler and Meta cafe.
To add a video from one of those sites, simply copy and paste the address (=URL) of the video and the field. Please don’t try to copy the long code (=EMBED) provided by the video service, it will not work.

Tags are keywords to describe and help to find your works. For example if there is a tree in your picture or video, using the tag tree will help people looking for trees to find it. On the page displaying your work, the tag “tree” is clickable and so anybody is able to find all works showing trees.

That is certainly because you forgot to publish it, go to your works list page and on roll over the covers you will be able to click on the “publish” button. That’s it.

As one of the purposes of radostar is to get exposure, there are many ways to spread your works and the works you love inside and outside the platform:
On a work page, under the slideshow you can:

• share the work by email


• send it to the main social networks: Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter, Digg and Delicious


• Post it in the groups you are part of.


• And of course share it with your radostar network

Using the “Edit your works” link in the “You” drop-down menu you access the public page that lists all works. From there, on roll over the covers you have access to the “Edit” link that will allow you to manage pictures, videos and information about your work.

Participating in the radostar community is of course not mandatory but we can only recommend that you try and in order to achieve that the best way is to connect with other people.
On each profile there is an “add to network” button, don’t hesitate to use it, you will then be notified on your dashboard each time this person add a new piece of work. You will also be able to share works you love easily with them.
Of course the person is notified that you have added them to your network, they can naturally do the same or leave you as a follower.
You can also subscribe to the RSS feed of a member and follow their work with your favorite RSS reader or directly in your browser.
Also don’t forget to leave comments on people’s works, as it is the best way to show your interest and to encourage them to have a look at your work.

During signup we only ask for the minimum amount of data, but once you have created your account you should edit your profile using the link on the dashboard or in the “You” drop-down menu. It is not necessary to fill in this data but it is the first step to be part of a community and provide other information about yourself.
Data such as country, disciplines, website, school , company, professional status and résumé are really valuable for people that want to know more about you and of course for potential employers.

All information displayed in your profile can be changed at anytime by using the “You” drop-down menu or the “Edit your profile” link on your dashboard and on your public pages.

All data entered in your profile is visible to members and visitors. The only restriction is the “contact” link on your public pages, this can be set in the “Edit your profile” page under “Contact me options”.

By default,members and visitors can contact you through the radostar message system (your personal email is never revealed) but if you prefer it can be displayed only to radostar members or not at all. This can be set in the “Edit your profile” page under “Contact me options”.

By default all messages you receive in your radostar inbox are forwarded to your personal email address. If you want to modify this setup go to “Your settings” page using the “You” drop-down menu.

Even if radostar is great, we understand that some may want to leave it.
Of course you can do that, by going to “Your settings” page using the “You” drop-down menu. From there you can delete your account. Please notice that all the content you have created will be deleted, except for groups you were admin of, which will be reassigned to a temporary manager.

As soon as a piece of work is published it is visible to everybody, be they members or just visitors of radostar.

Not at the moment we decided that a member’s favorites works list is not public, maybe it could be an option in the future.

All data entered in your profile is visible to members and visitors. The only restriction is the “contact” link on your public pages, this can be set in the “Edit your profile” page under “Contact me options”.

When you are looking at other people's works, favorites are here for you so you do not lose track of the ones you prefer. When you don’t have a lot of time it’s also a good way to keep them somewhere safe and then look at them later.
Finally it’s also a way to show your interest in a piece of work as it will be taken into account in our secret popularity formula!

When you are looking at works in a list mode, you have to roll over the cover and and click the “preview” or the “go to work page” button. Below the slideshow there is an “heart” button.

Use the “You” drop-down menu and click the “Your favorites” link. It will bring you to the list of your favorite works, from there, on roll over you can preview them or remove them from the list.

As you don’t want to give your email address to everybody we have built a comprehensive messaging system. We mainly use it to notify you about what is happening around your works and your profile. You will receive messages each time somebody adds you to their network, wants to share a piece of work with you or invites you to join a group.

By default all messages you receive in your radostar inbox are forwarded to your personal email address. If you want to modify this setup go to “Your settings” page using the “You” drop-down menu.

A group is a place for members to:

• express and exchange opinions
• share tips and tricks
• or gather content around a subject

It can also be used by schools to present their students best works and discuss hot topics and even by creative groups to showcase their works.
Groups are available to everyone, so create your group now and don’t forget to invite people to join it.
As groups could be used in a lot of different ways we have created a few categories to help members and visitors find interesting groups, the categories are:

• Schools to bring the best of the school you are at or have studied at in the past.
• Inspirational
• Regional, to gather people and works from the same geographical location
• Skills, to share advice, tips and tricks about your favorites disciplines
• Special interest

Joining or creating groups is one of the best way to find people sharing your interests and exchange point of views on your preferred subjects. It’s also a way to show your works and the works you love to targeted people as you can “Post” any piece of work to a group.
To join a group go on the groups page, there you are able to browse all categories of groups, as soon as you find an interesting one, simply click the join button. You can also subscribe to the RSS feed of the group.

The main activity of a group is discussions. As soon as you join a group you are able to create a new discussion, in order to do that simply go to the “Discussion” tab and click the “start a discussion button”, ask a question or launch a subject and here we go, all members of the group will be notified and the discussion can start!

Of course and the more people you have in a group the best chance it has to become popular and be full of discussions.
As soon as you join or create a group you can invite people to it, there are two ways of doing that:

• On the group page there is an invite button that will list all the people in your network, check their name and send the invitation.
• On each people profile there is an “Invite to a group” button, click it and it will display the list of your groups, simply check the ones you want the member to be a part of.

Posting content to groups is a simple way of gathering content under any topic or interest.
On each piece of work preview or work page there is a “Send to group” button, click on it and it will display the list of the groups you have created or are part of. Check the one you want to add the work to and automatically the work will be listed in the “Works” tab of the group.

The group creator is also the administrator of the groups, they have some rights that other members don’t have:

• Remove a discussion
• Remove members from the group

You cannot as a lot of people could have contributed to the group and it would be unfair if the administrator suddenly decided to delete it.

You can subscribe to the RSS feed of a member and follow their work with your favorite RSS reader or directly in your browser.

Yes, if you want to know about all the works that are added every day on radostar, the best way is to use our main RSS feed you can add it to your favorite RSS reader or use your browser.