More Suggested Features

[striatic]

Since the previous thread has public reply options disabled, I'm
starting this new thread.

1] although their API is not totally public, i would like to see Plurk
support, as it is my primary social network. there are two Plurk
iPhone apps that do everything that Friendbinder would need to do, so
if you could get similar access that should work fine.

2] collapse duplicates. i think you're already working on this though.

3] a link to a "replies" page on the mobile site. basically a link to
a page which has all the stuff in the left column of the main site.

4] some way to more quickly group people into interest levels, perhaps
dynamically. this is one of the most useful features of friendbinder
but it can take a pretty big effort to set up at first - going through
entire contact lists from multiple sites and assigning rankings. there
are many ways this process could be made simpler or more automated,
and i'm not particular as to the method, but my suggestion would be to
base it off social activity.

for example, attempt to figure out who people comment/reply to the
most, and who comments/replies the most in return. use this "social
engagement level" to advance accounts to higher interest levels.

another technique would be to analyze social network structure in
order to ascertain who is "closer" to someone, based on mutual
contacts.

finally, for services like flickr that have multiple contacts
"rankings", you could use this as a guide for interest level rankings.
contact=3, friend=4, family=4 or something similar.

5] provide option to show all twitter messages all the time. i don't
like the "1 more" links very much, as they make scanning all messages
more difficult. it'd be nice to be able to keep those expanded.

[striatic]

and 6] i think friendbinder needs to be more viral. this will help
more people use it.

maybe a friendbinder badge would help. like http://twitter.com/badges,
except it could contain all messages from all the sites you add into
friendbinder - one badge to rule them all.

another thing might might be a friendbinder specific way of posting
that generates a friendbinder link in the post itself. for example, if
friendbinder hosted longer posts above 140 characters on friendbinder,
maybe with photos/videos mixed in or something .. i dunno .. just
something facebook or twitter can't currently hold .. then generate
facebook and twitter links to those "uber posts" hosted on
friendbinder. this would give people a useful tool, while also
increasing awareness of friendbinder.

or maybe instead of a link to an "uber post" in a post, it could be a
link to an "uber reply" in a reply or a maybe a link to some place
where people from multiple services could engage in a conversational
thread together in friendbinder.

[Richard]

1) Yes I need to look at this more
2) Yes, I need to re-organize the code that displays the stream to do
that - so when I get a chance I look at doing that
3) Done - I've pushed out a new version of the mobile site with slight
tweaks to the UI and a replies link
4) Some good suggestions. You can also set interest levels while
viewing the stream using the pencil icon - but I agree there is a need
for automatic/batch operations. How close you are in terms of friend's
in common is difficult because it requires us to fetch lists of all
your friend's friends which is a lot of requests to make - I could see
doing something along the lines of who you reply to.
5) There is a setting on the settings page about grouping, see what
suits you on that - I think there is a few further bits we could do,
like only group photos and videos or group but always expanded.

[striatic]

> 3) Done - I've pushed out a new version of the mobile site with slight
> tweaks to the UI and a replies link

that looks a lot better. i do find that with longer names the row of
stars beside the name gets broken up onto multiple lines in a somewhat
confusing way [on iPhone]. the stars probably need their own line. it
looks more polished already as it is though.

> 5) There is a setting on the settings page about grouping, see what
> suits you on that - I think there is a few further bits we could do,
> like only group photos and videos or group but always expanded.

ah, i missed that setting. yep, that's a lot better. though i'd like
to group photos and videos but not status updates. the photo posts
take up more space and come allatonce more often, and benefit most
from consolidation.

[clickykbd]

re 1)

Hi there Richard. I've toyed with FriendBinder recently... but just
wanted to comment that Plurk integration would be a major motivation
for spending more time there. :-)

[dopiaza]

I'd just like to add another vote here for Plurk integration. While
Friendbinder is doing a great job of letting me keep up with all those
social networks that I never used to bother with too much, Plurk is
the main place I hang out - adding support for Plurk would a major
plus for me.

Dave W.

[Richard]

Re: Plurk

I would really like to add Plurk support to friendbinder, however as
it stands there is no API available from Plurk themselves, I emailed
them a week or two ago about this but didn't get a response. It is
pretty clear that they will have to offer an API at some point, though
they haven't yet.

Can I suggest that our users, contact Plurk about their API which
might help the process, perhaps mention friendbinder.

Thanks for your patience.

I also posted the same response in
http://groups.google.com/group/friendbinder/browse_thread/thread/f1e342541aa7ca5d