Biznik 2.0 call for ideas

One thing that I like about the Meetup web site is that when people sign up for events there, they have the option of writing a short comment. Those comments are then displayed for others to see when they look at that event.

I think it would be a nice addition to Biznik. It gives people the opportunity to give more context about why they want to attend a certain event -- or simply make some fun, friendly remarks!

I think I've already mentioned this to you Dan, but I'd love some sort of email system where we could keep track of outgoing/incoming emails. Right now if I send you an email through Biznik, it goes off into the Biznik ether, and I don't have a copy of it or any way to track it unless I copy the text and keep it somewhere else.

I'd also like to be able to track invitations. Currently I can't tell whether the invitations I've sent have been responded to, and sometimes I have a hard time remembering whether or not I've sent someone an invitation. I'm depending on my feeble brain ;-) and personal tracking system. It would be great if you could do something like you currently do with referrals.

Thanks for bringing us into the loop!

more when I get a round tuit...

~jan

Way cool. This will also allow the hosting member to get a sense of what would best serve their audience...

DD

Very cool -- thanks for implementing the comments idea so quickly, Dan!

Another idea: Most of the message boards I come across bump up the thread when someone replies. That way, when looking at the board, you can see which threads have been replied to. On this board, I need to either keep track of how many replies a thread has (and then open the thread if the number of replies has gone up), or I need to open the thread to see if a reply has been made.

Older threads may get buried and ignored as a result.

I'd prefer that threads that are replied to get bumped to the top, so people can tell at a glance if that thread has had recent activity. Being able to see a time stamp on the main board for the latest reply in a thread would be useful as well.

Does having the RSS feeds hinder this?

Hey there, Dan.

Since Biznik has already been very helpful for many people in expanding the ability for our businesses to simply let others know that we're open for business, how about taking that to the next level?

I've spoken to you, Dan, about putting together a list of tested services and tradespeople, and since one side of Biznik that is working already is helping us make more income from eachother and our networks, how about this idea of a list of tested services and tradespeople that we can all use and then get a deduction - and thus not just make more income from Biznik, but also save income?

I have spent a good amount of money on non-Biznik services or products, but since we have a great amount of people, why not take advantage of this and when one of us needs, say, an electrician or a plumber or a painter (if there are none currently in Biznik), we can go to them and save money?

Making money is a good thing, no doubt. But, we make money when we save it also.

Hey Dan, how about a buddy list or Social Network list. A way to link ourselves to our social and business network within Biznik and show it on our own pages.

This way if I trust one person I can see who they trust and I would probably use that person.

And a nifty network map would be sooooo cool so we can see how we are all conneted :)

Oh yes, what Phoenix said -- sort of a way to vouch for one another. Especially since testimonials seem to be a rare bird.

Hi Dan,

I'd like to see a way for one person to have more than one Biznik page. I have more than one business, and from the looks of this creative group, so do lots of other Bizniks. I'm currently listed with my new business, doing craft seminars in businesses, but I'm also a math tutor, and I help people clear their backlogs of paper and energetically work toward their goals. These are three very separate things, and it would be nice to have a way to show them all in Biznik.

Maybe that could be a separate option for those who are paying to support the site. Maybe a second linked page could be offered for the first $100, and $50 more for each additional page. I could easily see myself having 5 ;)

I know biznik type folks hate to be put in boxes but perhaps there could be some sort of categorization for skills, industries, etc. It could help with searching.

It would be really useful if you could add a Biznik event to Google Calandar. I see that you have iCal but that is mostly for Mac Users.

cool Dan, the G-Calendar feature will improve my use of biznik.

I don't know if you are familiar with Saul Wurman's Information Anxiety 2 Book. In it he outlines his LATCH organizational schemes - Location, Alphabet, Time, Category, Hierarchy. Each member could be easily assigned a value under the first 4 of these headings, time being how long they have been a member. Then if you put together some sort of sort page with the options under each as a drop down menu any member could slice and dice the membership.

You could use Hierarchy for different classes of members or for geography in which case Location could be the city.

Its a cool book and maybe one for the book club.

If you're going to do Google Calendar, could you enable Yahoo Calendar as well? Thanks! ~jan

Saul sounds like a compulsive organizer: we'd get along great! And I would join the book club.

DD

Biznik member ranking can be a great tool for filtering my choices, so I'd love to see more refinement and use of the member ranking elements.

I would like to recognize that there are many ways of supporting Biznik, and not all supporters are ongoingly active. Perhaps there's a way to factor "the test of time" into the ranking system?

You've already noted my request for an RSS by member. I don't know how realistic that is, and there may be simpler ways to achieve my goal. That goal is, to filter the posts on Biz Talk. Perhaps posts and response thereto have a peer rating feature, e.g., the possibility to click a "this comment was valuable to me" link and then the original writer gets some kind of cred therefore. A certain accumulation of such peer ratings garners some Biznik icon for that member ... But the cooler way to use it all would be to measure the "value" of a particular Biz Talk thread -- if many voices in the thread had earned the peer ranking, then that thread would so indicate. In other words, we could see at a glance if our especially worthy Biz-Talkers were busy chatting together. Umm. Juicy discussions. Bonus.

I think it's great that the only connection between people are referrals and testimonials. Anything more would begin to border on social network. You know what I'm getting at.

Uh, actually if you would elaborate Joshua, that would be great; I'm not sure what you are getting at ...

Gladly. If people could add other members as friends, acquaintances, etc. then biznik connections could feel less meaningful. When I see a work referral it's a more solid stamp of trust and a testimonial seems to me a seal of approval. I really like this characteristic of biznik.

Okay, now I grok. And I completely agree with you Joshua and Dan.

I think it was Lara I first heard mention "vouching" -- and this very much appeals to me as a feature of Biznik.

With Biz Talk getting so much more active (yay!) I'd love if the threads with unread posts could filter to the top, by most recent post. Similar to when I go to a tribe on Tribe, I know what thread I have posts to read and possibly respond to.

I'm losing track of which threads I've read all the way through, and how many posts there were, etc.

I don't always post in a thread, so the "send me an email" option doesn't apply if I'm just following what's being said by other Bizniks.

Kisses, Ms. Scarlett