Suggestions for news feeds

[WilmaFlintstone]

Dear Gaians,

In the spirit of keeping you up to date with latest goings on we are planning to introduce news feeds to the site. News feeds are frequently published snippets of information about things you may be interested in.

To make the news feeds meaningful to you we'd like to get your suggestions on what type of news feeds you would like to see. Some ideas are to notify you when:
* Your friend has added someone else as a friend
* Your friend has changed their profile
* Your friend's birthday is coming up
* A monthly collectible has sold for a high price in the marketplace
* Someone has replied to a thread you started
* Someone has commented on your profile

Also let us know where you would like to see the feeds. The Homepage and/or the My Gaia landing page could be good places.

If you want to respond, please remember the following:
1. Please use this thread only to post ideas. Move all side conversation to alternate threads.
2. Try to be as detailed as possible about your idea.
3. Constructive feedback only! This is brainstorming, so if you don't like something either give constructive criticism on how it may be improved or keep it to yourself. We want to make sure everyone feels comfortable posting their thoughts, and just because you don't like something doesn't make it "wrong".

Your input is greatly appreciated by us, so we're looking forward to your considered opinions.

Thanks!
Gaia Product Team

[Moonlight Silver]

I'd love to see news feeds about what the developers are working on. Such as updating item normalization, working on allowing both poses of imp feet, working on zOMG, etc etc. Whatever they're doing that week. Maybe just one update a week per dev.

That would be awesome! Besides that, I'd like to see when users quote me as well.

[Cosmic Remnant]

* Your friend has added someone else as a friend

I don't understand why this would be needed. I'm not going make friends with someone just because my friend made friends with them.

* Your friend has changed their profile

I don't care about this either. If they do, they do, if they don't, they don't. I'll see the change when I go there.

* Your friend's birthday is coming up

Now this I like... if you take away that awful Flynn PM that pushes people to buy from the CS all the time. I'd also appreciate that there is no link to the CS with this feed.

* A monthly collectible has sold for a high price in the marketplace

Uhh.. ? So? Some Gaians like commons, event, or CS items more then MCs. Not to mention the MCs quality hasn't been up to par of late.

* Someone has replied to a thread you started

I like this one too. I always wonder if someone replies back to me. Also could we have 'someone quoted you' feed too? And maybe for in Guilds too? (I use the forums quite a bit on Gaia)

* Someone has commented on your profile

Yes! I like this one as well. I'd love all those things that pop up in the bubble at the top (except for PMs, trades and annoucements) to be moved somewhere more appropiate. Oh and can we have the commenting on journals moved to a feed too?

* A feed to all the devs profiles and journals would be nice. Also a feed where it shows the newest stickies (from all the forums) have been posted.



Overall if you're going have 'all' of these feeds it'd be most appreciated if you allow us to choose which feeds to have since I know I wouldn't use all of them. Thanks. =D

[Jakobo]

Hey-yo all, thanks for tossing out suggestions (and WilmaFlintstone for making the thread)!

As one of the people banging on the keyboard and making this, I figure I should throw my ideas out there as well. smile

* Your friend [friend name] just won in the [arena name] Arena
(because half the time I don't know my friends even entered the arenas, let alone won)

* Your [evolving item] just changed into a [new item].
Because the Xth Gen items are a bit harder to keep track of via EI reports.

* [your friend] completed Quest: [quest name]
(for really difficult quests. I think this would be 100 times cooler once zOMG comes out.

* You were outbid in the marketplace on [item name].
The PM's nice, but it can get buried if you're a heavy exchanger.

* Your friend just joined the [guild name] guild.
Enter the big scary privacy flag. Yeah, I know this one is scary. I don't think people want to broadcast "I just joined the (insert disturbing thing here) Guild!" You can't possibly do this one without having a place for people to say "no, I don't want to share with my friends my private activities". This same privacy thing applies to buying things in the store, MC purchases, physical goods items, redeeming cash, and so on.

* [NPC You Bought From] thinks you'd like the [item name] since you bought the [item name].
Recommendations would rock. But they'd have to be smart (like, know I already bought something, avoid spamming me prematurely)

I'd like to see less bulletin type things. Like, when I'm on facebook, all the app-spam annoys the heck out of me. I don't really need zombie bites, funny jokes, or stuff like that. I do want to see what my friends are up to without having to crawl all over profiles, journals, forums, etc.

Long term, we've already talked about a system to say "show me more of these" / "show me less of these" feeds, so I'm not too opposed to adding the more generic noisy feeds like what your MC you just got is going for in the MP, friends making friends, etc. As more feeds get added though, it'll be very important to select what you want to see so that you don't get swamped with 50,000 feed items.

[ElindranythElindranyth]

As an avid profiler, I'd hate to get notified when a friend changed their profile, and I'd hate for my friends to get bombarded when I'm updating mine. As I work on a profile layout, I might "change" my profile 20 times in as many minutes tweaking things that I can only see live, and if they got an update for each of those tweaks, I think they might want to punch me in the face.

As for something I'd like to see, I would definitely love to see "this person who's journal you subscribed to/your friend has updated their journal"

I tend to forget about journals xd




Would it be possible to have a "feed update" notification up where we have announcements and PMs and trade and whatnot? Obviously we can't have a different notification for each type, but a generic "# news feed update(s)" in that area would be an awesome way to utilize the feed, rather than just have it be another thing that's handy but forgotten about because it's not right in our faces xd

[Cube B]

Let's see...

[User] has updated their journal.
Simply because I stalk Staff Journals. Like all the time.

Micro Announcements.
Things that are too small to warrant a full post, but that you'd be interested in hearing about, like:
"[X] Users were added to the zOMG! Beta Test".

[Friend] has just earned [Badge]
For hard to get badges. It's in the same vein as the quest feed.

[Friend] has changed their Username/Gender to [X]
It makes it easier to keep track of friends.

[Friend] has invited you to join them in Towns/zOMG!/Rally/VJ/Cinemas/etc. Want to Join Them?
This will require a reworking on the invite system. And with GIM you could just IM them or something. XD But it's a useful social feature.

[Friend] just beat [Boss]! Way to go!/[Friend] just got owned by [Boss]. Want to go help them out?
Also for zOMG.

[Friend] unlocked a secret area in zOMG!
For when you complete a quest in zOMG that unlocks access to a secret part of the map. (I.E. The Star Gate, G-Corp Labs, Etc. Etc...)


Also, a "Status" update a la Twitter would be very addictive. XD

[omgwtfkitteh]

So please kiss me

Your friend has added someone else as a friend
No, please. I don't want to know the millions of people that one of my friends has added to their friend list. It seems very pointless to me.

Your friend has changed their profile
I don't really see the point in this either. Especially since I know people that change their profile a lot. The messages would get annoying.

Your friend's birthday is coming up
I would use this. It would be nicer than the PMs we get.

A monthly collectible has sold for a high price in the marketplace
I don't see the point in it. I don't check on that thing often. Maybe if it's checked on my watch list, but I don't even use that.

Someone has replied to a thread you started
Now this I like. I've always wished for something like this. I never really subscribe to my own threads or threads in general because I'm just weird like that. So, if a message that tells me someone has replied to my shop was given that would be very handy.

Someone has commented on your profile
Don't we already have this? It pops up in the little bubble and that's actually where I would like it to stay.

As for the rest of the information, since you're trying to redo the MyGaia page it would be interesting if you could fit a few of these things there.

Please kiss me all night

[How so Joe]

Cube B

Let's see...

[User] has updated their journal.
Simply because I stalk Staff Journals. Like all the time.

I am in absolute and total agreement with this one. For the exact same reason.

Other things I'd like included...

[Friend X] joined [Guild X that you're a member of]
Because I'm normally too lazy to notice things like that. It's nice to have someone tell you!

New sticky posted in [Forum X]
But you'd have to pick for certain forums, coz no-one wants to see every sticky posted in every single forum on the site. It'd be like a billion stickied.

[Person X] commented your [arena X] entry
Do you get notifications for this? I've never entered the arenas, but I'd like to be notified of comments if I did.

New reply by [Person X] to your thread [Thread X]
Because I'm too lazy to check my threads most of the time. Which is kind of ridiculous on a forum site, but y'know, I'm weird like that.

That's all I can think of for the moment. I might come back and edit some time.

[Miles To Go]

Ok these two ideas you listed I -DON'T- think should go through.

* Your friend has added someone else as a friend - Srsly. People add friends all the time. That would be annoying constantly seeing that. Also really you have to ask yourself... Why? -Why- would we need to see that someone else added someone else? It would basically just spam the feature.

* A monthly collectible has sold for a high price in the marketplace - okay again, why? Bragging for the people who sold/bought it? Encouraging inflation by proving stuff sells for more than it should? Pretty useless as well. And especially, if "high price" means more than the average selling price, then the notice will go off allllll the time, because the average price is usually a day behind the items' current price.

And I wasn't going to object with the profile thing, but after seeing Elindranyth's comment about it she really brings up a good point. -If- by chance you still want to add profile notifications, you should make it so it can only be sent out once every 24 hours or something, so a person who constantly edits wont bombard people. But also since the first time they save it probably wont be ready for viewing, maybe just make it optional, like, after you edit your profile a button appears and if and only if you press it, it notifies people. After 24 hours, if not pressed, the button becomes unpressable again. o 3o

I must say though I really like Moonlight's idea about development feed. That would be great!

Journal updates for sure.

Hmm..

Well I'm sure people will probably disagree, but I think it would be cool to get notified every time someone catches a super rare fish (motha guppa, diamondback, etc). Just because a lot of people aren't sure they even exist. xD Then again that could lead to the person who caught it getting begging PMs, so I don't know.

OHOHOH!!!

- A LIVE FEED OF WHEN OUR FRIENDS LOG ON AND OFF. I WOULD LOVE THAT. :'D

Edit: Oh just thought of another one:
- Notifications every time someone enters your house.

***By the way regardless of what you decide to add notifications on, you should make sure that each individual notification can be toggled on and off, because I'm sure problems will arise between individuals where the system becomes abusive/spammed, but will still benefit a majority of people who aren't being abused through it. (Example: House entrance notifications disabled, but log on notifications still enabled)

[AlexDitto]

I'm pretty much in agreement with everyone here on suggestions and un-suggestions ( xd LOL NEW WORD). Jakobo's idea about later gen EIs is really good, and I love Cube's ideas for zOMG feeds.

Some other ones I thought of:

Feeds for updates to Subscribed Threads: if a certain thread is very rarely updated, but important to me, I'd like to be notified if/when it's updated, instead of having to refresh my Thread Subscriptions all the time.

Your item was purchased from the Marketplace No more PM spam from the admin! Things like this would be perfect for the feed.

Cute notes about NPC happenings: Like you guys have time for this, but if any of you devs are into bringing the NPCs to life, why not start a Twitter-like feed with maybe a once-a-day tidbit from an NPC? "Rina: I just ate some flowers... I think one had a bug in them. Eew." or "Liam: Totally got turned down by Vanessa. Again. I never knew what the inside of a teddy bear looked like..." OK, maybe a stupid idea, but I loved the little ticker on the Olympics page with silly quotes about the NPCs.

Small site updates: Going Postal, NPC Shop ads, Minicomics, MC ads/hints on the front page. None of them warrant Announcements, but a feed would be cool, especially since they SO RARELY GET UPDATED. >.<

Gaiaversaries, important dates, etc: Could a feed be set up that includes not only Birthdays, but Gaiaversaries, and maybe start dates for Events. I always miss my own Gaiaversary...

Thread Title Change: I don't know how useful this would be, but often for things like art auctions and Towns events (think Gaia Community Theater), when there's a new high bid, the thread title is updated to include it. By attaching a feed to a thread's title, you could know when a major update occurs to a thread... I'm trying to think about how it would be possible to look for major updates to a thread without getting feedspam for every title change.

And yes, a Twitter-like/facebook like status would be very addicting. Also PLZ no application spam. YOUR FRIEND INVITED YOU TO TRY THIS FEED! *Shoots*

Wishlists: THE UNLOVED HARD-TO-USE FEATURE. You guys need to bring Wishlists back, big time. Right now, it's labor-intensive to add and remove items from your wishlist... but for friends who are questing, a wishlist feed might be interesting? I don't know... I guess this is just an excuse to complain about wishlists? gonk Anyone else have an idea on how to work this in?

zOMG group feeds: I know we'll be able to make parties in zOMG, so maybe some sort of info if your party is out fighting, so you can go join them?

[snufflypoo]

i'd love to know when i've been quoted in the forums.
a your friend entered the arena type alert would be cool and maybe when the week is done it could show their final ranking.
i also like the friend has changed username/gender idea...

*edit* i love miles to go's idea about letting you know someone is in your house.

[Holly]

Some ideas:

Someone has posted in your subscribed thread
I always check to see if anyone has recently posted in the topics I subscribe to

Your friend has written a journal entry
I don't check journals that much, but sometimes entries can be interesting so it'd be nice to know right away when a friend of mine has made an entry. Then I can comment on it right away, instead of a few weeks or months later

Maybe a notice when a friend of yours who hasn't signed in for a few weeks, signs on

I like all the ideas you had in the first post except the one about an item selling for a lot of money.....I just sorta wouldn't care about that @__@

[BASTAS knife STOLEN]

i love the idea of your friend has changed their profile! <3 all the pders would enjoy that♥♥

&&i think it would be awesome to have a feed of if your friend has won profile spotlight/the arenas/etc. :] <3

i'd also love if you made a thing about what the staff is working on atm♥ thats VERY useful! <3

[chewyurfood]

I apologize for being blunt, but I really wouldn't care for most of the alerts. They would be a bit annoying to me.

* Your friend has added someone else as a friend
This would be annoying with all the friend adding going on, and frankly, I wouldn't care who my friend made friends with. Odds are, I don't know them.
* Your friend has changed their profile
Again, I really wouldn't care. When people change their profiles, it's usually just little things. If it's really that important, then my friend will tell me.
* Your friend's birthday is coming up
I think this would be useful, as long as Flynn has nothing to do with it.
* A monthly collectible has sold for a high price in the marketplace
Again, I really wouldn't care unless it was an item I was questing, and in that case I would already know.
* Someone has replied to a thread you started
This could be a useful feature, but there might be problems when someone's created a popular thread and it's overflowing with replies. So an option to turn it off for a certain thread might be needed.
* Someone has commented on your profile
I thought we already had this? I'm neutral on this since I don't receive many comments.

[Cube B]

Idea... if you implemented a feature where you could tag an item on your wishlist for "Questing", you could set the feed for when you could afford that item. Of course, a Questbar system would be nice as well. I'd like something that auto updates. XD

The high price feature would be nice if you were a vendor though... but it definitely should be Opt In.

Oh, another idea!

[NPC] Has a Quest For you! For things like randomized (or semi randomized) NPC Quests.
Or perhaps "A new Quest has become available on your quest board! Check it out!"