Social Networking Features

We have another thread that slightly touched on this topic, but I'd like to hear more of your thoughts.
Do you like the direction that forums are going with all of the new social networking tools and features? Do you think they are a bunch of unnecessary features, or do you think they make great additions to your community?

Personally, I like the social networking aspect of forums. It allows for a greater connection between members which makes their experience much more personable, thus increasing their loyalty to the site.

 

I think it's a nice combination. I've been told by some of the younger members on one of my forums that it "makes the place more fun". :p

 

I like the social stuff because that gives members more reasons to stay on your site because then its not just post and leave.

And if you don't want this stuff then you can just turn it off, so its very good that this features is coming.

 

I think that IPB 3 has done a pretty good job of blending the two together.

 

I agree with you on that!

 

Now are we talking about creating a social group in userCP or installing those Facebook/Twitter Icons at the bottom of our post?

 

A little bit of both, I think.

 

ugh I don't like those things.

I think Nick is talking more about the social groups, albums, visitors messages, etc.

I'd like to see vB take it one step further in some future release and allow for Twitter/facebook integration. I take that back, not really integration per se... but I would like to see a "tweet" bird option on every post.

We'll have to face the fact that social networking, in some form, is the way of the future and we'd better get on board or get run over.

 

I think it'd be absolutely fantastic if vBulletin could develop some sort of built-in Twitter feature - I'd get tremendous use out of it.

 

Heck if they did that, I might be tempted to open another community-type forum

 

I like the idea of having increased integration with social networks like Facebook and Twitter. The issue is that you never know what's a fad and what will be around for a long time.

Yeah, it's simple for such integration to be implemented, but if you looked at everything like that, the software would become bloated rather quickly.

Furthermore, who is to decide what social networks are worth implementing? If a crowd wants Twitter and Facebook integrated, then another crowd is going to claim it's only fair to implement MySpace and Digg as well. The point is that all of this extra stuff (that honestly, a lot of people still don't use) will become prevalent and a turn-off for a lot of users.


That's how I see it. I mean, I'm all for the extended integration, but you have to see it from all sides.

Like Peggy said, we're talking about things like friends, albums, visitor messages, social groups, etc. A lot of the stuff that was added in 3.7.

 

I can see integrating say, LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. Definitely not MySpace. Even tho MySpace has made strides in trying to "grow up" and not be looked down on as the teen scene for social networking, or the pick-up place for lonely singles, in many ways it is still exactly that. I can't see any serious networking between vB and MS.

Now Twitter, on the other hand.. who would have thunk it??? Twitter started out fun enough, innocently enough, and probably with not much vision for anything other than sending friends and acquaintances short little messages or "tweets". However, it has grown to such proportions, that high-end companies are standing up and taking notice, opening accounts, and using it to send short "announcements". That's gotta tell you something. I think, imho, that Twitter will be around for a long time to come and should be viewed as something substantial.

As much as I wish that Twitter had picked a name besides - well - TWITTER, one has to realize that had the powers-that-be not chosen that particular (and let's admit it, peculiar) name, it probably would have just fallen by the wayside as another fly-by-night sn.

who knows?

 

I think that a lot of the new vBulletin social networking features tend to go untouched on most forums I see. Aside from commenting profiles on occasion, I don't really see the use of groups, albums, and whatever else they gave us beyond forum-posting. And from my understanding IPB has already redesigned their user profiles to be almost exactly like a MySpace type page. I'm not sure how useful that is in their community, so maybe someone can fill me in.

 

The user groups feature is horribly implemented - due to its access location(s), it is hardly noticeable.

 

to be honest, I don't see the need for the social groups either., I'm a bit surprised that they wasted time on that one.

But the albums do have many and varied uses. People love showing off their pics. They have the varied privacy options.

On Themes by Design, I use the album in conjunction with the vBAdvanced Module: Latest Album Pictures mod to showcase my free styles on my homepage. It works out perfectly.

Some of my clients have completely dumped the gallery add-ons in favor of the profile albums, mostly for the privacy control issue, but also because the galleries just have alot of bloat that they don't need. They simply want a place to display their pics, and the ability to comment on them. So the album does have its merits.