CrowdVine needs friends-list portability!

Posted Mon Jan 07 16:18:09 -0800 2008

I'm a big fan of having an ad-hoc social network surrounding an event like SGFoo (or any conference/workshop) where I can find out who I know that's coming and who I want to meet. But what's sorely needed is the ability to pull in my existing address book and automatically find all the people I already know, rather than having to wander around the site and re-find all the people I know. I bring this up since we'll presumably be talking about this topic at SG Foo, and here's a perfect use case we should all be able to relate to. js


Yeah, I felt a little dirty having to invite everyone. :P

 

Heh, but it's worse than that--it means most people probably won't use the site, or won't use it to the extent they could. And it flows in both directions: i want to know who I already know when I go to an event (ab --> crowdvine) and then I want the new people I meet during the event to come back to my address book (crowdvine --> ab). Then at the next event, it can tell me "you know David; you met him last year at SG Foo". Now that's interoperability! :)

 

Joseph, we've got outbound portability in the form of vcard export (and FOAF and hcard/XFN). Try looking under the My Network tab for that.

Inbound is on the radar, although I think it's always important to ask why you would recreate your social network. I try to encourage people to think of this as an opportunity to meet new people. However, there are two good reasons to reconnect with old friends.

We do some aggregation/filtering based on your network. Right now you can see an aggregated feed of all blog posts from your network (under the My Network tab). If Kellan and I get the scheduler up we'll also show which sessions are popular in your network.

There's also social value in re-friending someone. I'm hoping someone at the camp can explain the nuances to me but the gist is that many people like getting a reminder of the relationship (and some don't).

 

Also, what's with having to add urls? Did I not just give crowdvine my url? This is 2008, people, year of the hCard and rel=me. Maybe you've heard of it?

 

Ok, maybe I harshed the buzz. Still.

 

Crowdvine could become the open analogous to Facebook groups.