Staff |  gmc | Aug 6, 2008 5:20pm | When we first started SU in 2001, there was no "friends" system. We calculated some "similar stumblers" who could supply you with interesting sites, but you couldn't explicitly subscribe to someone's favorites. When we added the friends system, we chose "Friend" & "Fan" as the terms for non-reciprocal activity, and "Mutual friends" for when you both friend each other. But over time we've noticed a few issues with this approach. Sometimes you won't share similar interests with a real-life friend you invite to SU, but you are now seeing their ratings because you are friends. And we've heard that some people want to see more stumbles from a great community member you find, but at first it wasn't clear that adding them as a friend was how you subscribe to their favorites. So over the next couple weeks we plan on changing this terminology and functionality... separating the "social" and "content discovery" aspects of StumbleUpon, and giving you more control over who you get your stumbles from.
The first major change will be terminology. Right now you "Friend" someone, and in the process become their "Fan". If they friend you back (or were someone you invited to SU via email) they become a "Mutual Friend" and you can share sites with each other. This is a bit confusing because its not immediately clear that clicking "Add them as a friend" will subscribe you to their favorites. The term "Fan" is also more socially-oriented than content oriented, and right now its being used to describe both. Plus right now you can only share with "Mutual Friends" (because you want to have control over who can directly send you sites... only people you friend back or explicitly invited to SU), but in real-life the term "Mutual Friend" refers to someone you both know, and on SU we are using it to mean "trusted stumblers who i exchange content with". When this new system is in place things will be a lot simpler. Mutual-friends will just become "Friends", fans will become "Subscribers" and you'll simply be "Subscribed to" stumblers who rate great content.
The second major change will be the functional separation of friendship and subscription. Instead of both social and content aspects being tied together, you'll be able to subscribe to someones content without "friending" them, and you'll be able to turn off stumbles from real-life friends who have different tastes in web content. When surfing profiles and you find someone you think is interesting, you'll be able to choose between "Subscribe" and "Add as Friend". If you "Subscribe", you'll become their subscriber and start to see their stumbles, but not be called a "fan". Whereas if you click "Add as a friend" you'll go through a more traditional friend-request process like regular social networks. And if you invite a real-life friend to SU, who you occasionally might want to share sites with but for the most part don't have similar interests, you'll be able to opt-out of subscribing to their favorites. We also are going to remove the "200 friend limit" in this new system, so you can have a set of friends on SU you want to interact with, as well as a larger set of people you are subscribed to, just because you like the sites they thumb-up.
Most of the back-end database changes for this migration are already complete (thanks mdagosta!), but we are still thinking about exactly how the user interface for this system will work. We will keep you posted over the next few weeks as we figure it out... at this point its mostly down to the details of how the friend-request flow will work and how you'll unsubscribe from a friends stumbles. Any comments or suggestions on this new system are appreciated... we'll incorporate feedback from this thread as we start to finalize the design :) |
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| | | italian-scallion | Aug 6, 2008 5:30pm | | Nice. |
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Sponsor | | ferretsgames | Aug 6, 2008 5:35pm | | This is something a lot of us have wanted for a long time. Thank you.:) |
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Sponsor | | Denise-R | Aug 6, 2008 5:57pm | | Great stuff...Thank You! |
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Sponsor | | pixiequix | Aug 6, 2008 6:00pm | | Hurray, this is a great development! :) |
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Sponsor | | expressioniste | Aug 6, 2008 6:07pm | | I like the limit being lifted and the rest is a good theory. I expect it will be a new source of issues when people want to be friends instead of subscribers and vice-versa. I am not sure that the friend and fan distinction will go so smoothly for some. I think if you were to have a friend request which can be accepted or denied that would be good. If you could just turn the stumble received from said friend on or off depending on your tastes that would also be good. Separating the friend and subscriber and their functions will result in new arguments and feuds as I see it. I hope I am wrong. Very good approach but we stumblers are an emotional whiny lot sometimes! |
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|  |  3205097 | Aug 6, 2008 6:11pm | In theory the is fantastic!
But in application, will this cause "too much" complexity, and subsequently more time spent juggling this aspect of the site?
Overall, I am cool with this. As always, great work guys! |
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Staff | | eric | Aug 6, 2008 6:15pm | | Well put, GMC. I think our main challenge will be making new stumblers understand the system through a simple and intuitive user interface. I heard the George-Bot has already been dispatched on this mission! |
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|  elledark | Aug 6, 2008 6:19pm | | Sounds great. A thousand friends is quite a lot to manage though. Theres an unofficial 'best friends' add-on floating around (allegedly) that lets you pull a handful of real friends up to the top of your friends list so you can see them easily (but obviously only you can see it). I wonder if something like that might be a useful feature in the new expanded system or, if its too late now, then as a future development maybe ? |
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