October 29, 2011

  • Xanga suggestions

    Xanga suggestions

    Community development

    @christao408 asked me what my #suggestions were to the #Xanga product council in my discussion with @bob during this week. This entry is a shortened summary of the key ideas I put forward. 

    My suggestions was simple and I think would be easy to implement. Firstly in terms of context I consider myself a topical writer. I write about specific topics that interest me rather than about daily event and issues. You will find me writing about philosophy, mysticism and other esoteric topics. So my needs are driven from that perspective. From an information management perspective I am looking for ideas that can improve the #community element of Xanga but also something that allows me to much quicker get to information I am particularly interested in. I am sure these ideas will improve Xanga’s #social_networking capabilities

    1) Suggestion 1: Filter access to blog entries by friend groups
    Xanga has a capability where you can group your friends. My suggestion is rather than just making a blog entry just private or public…we must have the ability to say a specific entry would just be seen by a specific friends group. For example, I might want to blog about a family event and just want my family to see it…or else I might to exclude a specific group from seeing it which means if a family member log in they can not see a specific entry. I have offered this suggestion years ago to Xanga and they did not act on it. Facebook has jumped on the idea and currently when you post a comment you can specify who can or can not see each comment. 

    2) Suggestion 2: One Xanga many topical views.
    Xanga already has a tagging and search capability. Because I write on a variety of topics I might attract a group of interested people. Like this entry might attract people interested in Xanga and community building. However when I switch to another topic like Astrology I might bore those same people because they are not interested in that topic at all. Some might even from a religious perspective not want to read about it. So my suggestion was that you must be able to name a set of topics that you regularly write about and then people can subscribe to that topic rather than to your website in general. So when a user subscribed to my Astrology writings …when they visit my blog they just see my writings on astrology. They do not have wade through my writings about other topics or search to find when last I wrote about that topic. So I can build up a community around that topic. In the ideal world you would even like to apply different back ground themes to different topic spaces. When I communicate to other forums I can suggest that they go to my Astrology website…on Xanga and they can see all my writings on astrology. Ideally you want to be able to just add the topic behind your username to allow people to go directly to a specialised view of Xanga. 

    3) Suggestion 3: Purposeful subscriptions
    Building on the previous suggestions. Rather than just seeing a list of subscriptions which overwhelms the senses. I would like to see when certain bloggers write about certain topics. Keeping to the example of astrology, if I want a particular friend blogs about astrology I want to read it but I am not interested to read when they write about a family trip. It is not that the family trip is less important. I have limited time to read Xanga blogs and I want to filter the things I might be most likely be interested in to read from friends I have on my friends list. So make it easier for me to see what are the interesting things I want to read. I so often miss entries I would have loved to read because i am just to lazy to go into the history of everything that was written.
    4) Suggestion 4: Building communities around topics
    We make friends around topics we write about. Based on the above suggestions when you have the ability to group friends, have topical views and purposeful subscriptions then things can really start to happen. The first is that when you open a topical view you can have a window pointing to others that also selected that same topical view. So my site might reference to other Xanga bloggers also writing about astrology. This create a blogring where as a community we start to develop content around topics of interest and we are more likely to build communities with people having common interests.  Lastely rather than just having a top blog in general have a top blog on topics. So I write about astrology and want to see the top blogs on astrology…I select astrology and I suddenly see all the people sharing my interest and who gained a lot of interests in their topics.
    It all boils down to finding mechanisms to read topics that interest me and to reach people that have similar interests than me.
     
    These are essentially some of the ideas I put forward.  I could not confirm that these ideas will carry weight with the broad Xanga community so you are welcome to give your opinions about these ideas or expand on them.

Comments (13)

  • It seems to me like it’s mostly formalization/codification of features already available on xanga; tagging, in specific user tagging and hash-tagging, makes cross-referencing blog entries easy enough, and allows one to create a network of bloggers interested in the same topics.

    Not being a topic blogger, however, I don’t feel a need to filter out what I read or what I write based on topic. I like that I’m eclectic enough to attract a wide range of readers, and wind up having the chance to introduce ideas some people have previously never considered, because they subscribe/friend after the first couple of entries.

    I suppose I could sort by topic, but why? If it’s something I would ever sort into a “topic” group, I have it hash-tagged or regular-tagged.

    I do like the privacy levels idea. I doubt I’d ever use it, but I know many people who would, so that one seems kind of cool.

  • When you made these suggestions, what was the reaction of the person you communicated with ?

  • I like the topics suggestion.  I was actually playing with the idea to start multiple blogs where I’d blog about individual topics and just post all of them here, but I never got them started.  I was going to keep a management blog, a food blog, and a fitness blog.  The idea of having multiple front ends for my multipurpose blog is very enticing for someone such as myself.

  • Google+ has something like you suggest in number 1.  I use the circles there to limit blogs posts to particular groups of friends. 
    I like what you suggested about topics.

  • @opticalnoise - I agree, my suggestions is not radical but about using the capabilities that is already in Xanga more specifically. I realize that it might not be an attractive features for many existing Xangans because the current features does not support topical bloggers….however it might attract bloggers that were not interested in Xanga before.

    @The_Eyes_Of_A_Painter - The response was positive. They have not yet heard these ideas before and Bob ask a lot of questions to delve a bit deeper into the implication of the suggestions.
    @orcofdoom - Exactly…The suggestions would be ideal for you. I also can probably start up several blogs but that just take too much effort it is much easier if your blog becomes a portal to diverse views.
    @C_L_O_G - I have not experimented a lot with Google+. I think Google will give many social networking environments competition in the future. There ability to manage information is there strength and that is my primary requirement…Quick access to information I am interested in and connecting quickly with people who share an interest.

  • @Zeal4living - I’m interested in connecting with creative people…particularly those interested in photography.  That is one reason I like xanga so much.  There are a lot of creative people here.   

  • Kewl idea.

  • I think your ideas are pretty awesome and I’ve always wondered why Xanga has never done this before. It would surely be a lot easier on many levels. I hope they take your suggestions.

  • While I can understand making these things easier to do, I think the biggest change that should be made is in the quality of people(which I do not see as possible.) Then again I do not speak to many people here, and not much would change that. I see your ideas as good, but far from innovative. No offense.

  • @C_L_O_G - I would like to connect with photographers as well…Maybe my photography is one of the things I neglected on Xanga.

    @RestlessButterfly - Thank you
    @boricua_chic_2008 - I am sure Xanga will look at all the suggestions of all the Xangans they had spoken with and make some changes.
    @MysticRythms - I never claimed my suggestions as innovative. I wrote that my ideas are simple…and when I wrote about my engagement in my previous blog I wrote that Xanga already had the features available and that it is just a matter of putting it all in place

  • Your suggestion #1 is essential, imo, and something I have always wanted from xanga.  I’m glad you had the opportunity to participate because you have great feedback.  I like all your ideas.

  • Those are some great ideas.

  • @everyday_yogi - Great to have you as a visitor…I miss your blogging. Sometimes it is the simple easy ideas that can make a profound change.

    @bmojsilo - Thank you for the support.

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