just read through the technical brief (i couldn't help it): all developments make total sense to me :-)

just one question:
how are you planning to deal with existing "one-way friendships"? ask the other person - or just keep the status quo?

cheers,
alex

Quijote, Aug 29, 2006 @ 20:49

I can't believe you actually read the 10 pager...Good on you...(-:

Before we launch the new Friends system, we'll have to clean out all current Friends list. We'll let all members know of this enough time before.


Nir Ofek, Aug 29, 2006 @ 21:02

...combined with the idea of adding max. 5 people a day, some 'older' members would need weeks to rebuild their friends network - a careful planning (e.g. printing old friend list upfront) assummed.

of course, the best would be if there would be a way to maintain your (mutual) friends but i can imagine this could be technologically difficult. maybe you could allow us to add a higher no. of people at the beginning?

can also understand tinkie's opinion to use "contacts" instead of "friends" but personally prefer the notion of "friends" because that's what GOL is all about in the end - making friends.

Alex
Quijote, Aug 30, 2006 @ 00:58

I hear you, and know it might be a lot of work to re-establish the 'old' friends network. But we have no way of knowing which of the current friends are 'mutual', as we do not a (and this gets a bit technical here) database of who your friends are and which of these friends also has you as a friend...

On the positive side, this could be a good test: it will only be worth to take the effort to re-connect with 'real' friends, so some less strong connections might evaporate in the move...(-:
Nir Ofek, Aug 30, 2006 @ 11:34

apart from what's already been mentionned,i can't wait to be able to write to several people at once!!!
Minda, Aug 30, 2006 @ 19:19

I have to say that all of the random chats tend to keep me from logging in to this great site, so I'm very happy to not have to deal with them anymore. A BIG thanks to Nir and Oded (and anyone else involved) for all of the improvements!
tiffany, Aug 30, 2006 @ 19:51

I read the technical brief, it sounds complicated and it wouldn’t be my number one priority. I would have preferred to see a folder system where “friends” could be in one folder and “contacts” in another. This would be very useful for activity organizers who want to send out an email just to a group of people.

Of course, I couldn’t write this without wondering, as I have before, why GoL is spending time and money reinventing existing technology. Email systems all cope with spam and address lists. Chat is handled by MSN, Yahoo! messenger etc. When people are “friends” they exchange email addresses and stop using GoLmail.

Now what would be cool is if I could drag the picture of a GoL friend into to the “To” box of my email program!...So perhaps what I’m suggesting is that GoL software interfaces more smoothly to existing applications rather than writing it’s own.

Cheers, Rob

Rob_M, Aug 31, 2006 @ 10:18

Thanks Rob.

You raise 2 key points:

1. Making it easy to activity organisers to send Email to all those registred to their activity.
This will come in the future, fully integrated into the 'members activities' section.

2. Saving money (and efforts / time) by using exisiting technology instead of writing our own.
Trust me on this - since every single cent is coming out of our own pockets, we're doing all we can to use existing technilogy and not re-invest an expensive wheeel. When possible, we do it (and sometimes, actually, adapting an existing technology for a small site like our is more expensive than writing new one). When not possible - we write our own...(-:


Nir Ofek, Aug 31, 2006 @ 11:56

Thanks for sharing this info. I do really like some of the new features, especially:
- multiple emails at once
- Online Status Drop Down Box (Online / Busy)
- Who can Chat with Me Drop Down Menu
- You Are connected to XYZ through ABC - DEF - 123
The last two are very smart and interesting to me. And I've got no comments to do on the technical / usability side. Congrats !

Things are on their way, this is too late to argue on the choices made, so I won't. But still, let me share with you some fears concerning the possible disadvantages of 2 of them: "Most Friends in Network" display and automatic mutual friendship.
I do agree that asking permission to the member for adding them to your friend list is a good thing. Btw, most people do it today life or via chat. But as we've witnessed evident abuse, let the process be formally controlled. Fine. But why should this be mutual ? Sounds rude, doesn't it ? Let me explain.
As Tinkie mentioned, we don't have the same conception of what is / should be a friend. And we don't all have the same network and seniority. Some people i've met once at a party, an event I was organising or taking part in have added me to their friend list. Most of the time, fresh fishes happy to have a first friend on their list. I took it as a nice, positive and appreciated sign of friendliness. But if I would add on my friend list all the people that are part the roller gang, the music gang, the paragliding addicts, those who came sailing once with me or ate at my place, my friend list would be a phone book. Anyway, I don't really mind adding those persons on my friend list per se. But if I have 200 persons on it, does the "Who can Chat with Me" drop down menu still make any sense ? I might be available to arrange tomorrow's Alex's birthday with some friends, without being available to catch up with that guy I met last 6 months ago. So I guess I'd have to switch to "busy" and give my MSN address to my "real" friends. Is it what we want ? GOL using other tools than GOL to keep in touch with friends met through GOL ? For all that, I'm afraid lots of people will reject requests to be added on friend lists, or won't have the guts to ask popular people to add them.
On this last point, sorting members by number of friends in their list, doesn't it look like a competition ? Are we working towards a MySpace popularity system ? Didn't many members already complain about GOL having too many cliques and elitism ? Do we want to give implicit "first star" membership status to some, based on how many people they added ? Isn't Geneva life competitive enough on the business level to extend it to friendship management ? How will "0 friend" members feel like ? Encouraged to meet lots of people... or even more lonely, devaluated and rejected ?
For all that, I fear this two specifications could lead to many frustrations and disappointments. I'm sure we can handle the effects without necessarily changing the specs. But we should make sure there is no misunderstanding about what they should be, or not be. So, could we sum all that up with :
- GOL is not a dating site
- The most popular members are not necessarily the best ones
- Members with few friends are those who are most welcome on GOL, this site was made for them, chat with them !

I'm looking forward to read everyone's feedback !
Friendly yours ;-)
Hobbes
Hobbes, Aug 31, 2006 @ 13:50

The objective of enabling members to sort other members by 'who has most friends' was designed as a way of showing who are the most friendly people on the community, who are willing to make efforts to meet and become friends with others. Might be that this is not needed indeed...To simplify things, we will launch with this function (as it's already under work), and if we realise it's not useful - we'll kill it.

We also take the point about contacts vs friends, and will think how to address it...
Nir Ofek, Aug 31, 2006 @ 16:15

Thanks !
Hobbes, Aug 31, 2006 @ 17:52

Why? If I go to a party and meet 20 friendly GOLers, should I take note of the names to link them within during the following week?
And couldn't you let the actual friend lists as such and apply the new regime to new additions?

Stef__Granny, Aug 31, 2006 @ 18:11

I know that for someone as friendly as you, Stef, 5 an hour is more reralitic than 5 a day...(-: But we want to try with 5 a day for now, to make it a bit harder for spammers to send thousands of 'be my friend' invitations each day. We can easily play with this barrier of 5 and make it 20 or 1000 at a later date, if that's needed.

Re keeping your current friends list: not sure how to do this, as we do not know which of everyone's current friends are by mutual agreement, and which are one sided...

Nir Ofek, Aug 31, 2006 @ 19:27

Terrific Nir; great to read news of the progress to come. Ongoing thanks to you and the gang of course!!! Estelle
lovethiscity, Sep 1, 2006 @ 15:47

when you can add as many friends as you want, meaning that you can ask for example all of the ppl in your friends list to be your friends at once and have 3 days to get an answer? After that then 5 a day ...this way we can get the bulk of our friends back soon and without having to wait 25 days like some of us will end up doing if it' really only 5 a day ...

is it feasible??

Vale
Hoiling, Sep 4, 2006 @ 12:56

we will see if we can do this technically.
Nir Ofek, Sep 4, 2006 @ 13:03

Also is very productive for my work ... ha ha
As I'm online all the time during the day

Sandro
smile2sandro, Sep 6, 2006 @ 19:11