Network feature: How will you use it?

I'm not sure how I'll use it for business but I like that it shows you who in your network is going to other events. I think, "Hey Mr. Joe Shirley is going so I know I'm going to have a good time." That's pretty cool.

Yes. I wondered about the uses of it. Perhaps it will someday tie into the "vouching" of members which had been discussed as a possible Biznik feature?

But I can see using it the same as I used to use "friends" on Tribe, e.g., I see that Joe knows Dominic and I know Dominic so I could pre-screen Joe by asking Dominic about him ...

I think it has more potential for the future than anything. Right now it's just a popularity contest. Which is valuable data, and not without research merit.

I think it's a great question though.

The limitations that I see with it, in it's current incarnation, are that it's just a flat network. You can't see when that "connection" was set?, whether it has endured or strengthened over time?, and on what basis someone is a part of your network? But I suspect more features like that will come over time.

We resisted putting this feature in for a long time. We thought that a referral network would be more valuable - showing who you've referred business to seemed to be more relevant than who you've decided to associate with. But it turned out that people were using the referral networks like a popularity contest anyway. So I think it's best for us to have it, because it'll allow us to do a lot more down the road as Biznik grows. It's not that useful right now, when the network has less than 4,000 people, but it will become very useful as a screening tool when we have 40,000.

one of the things that we did think of was the one that you noticed - showing the events that members who are in your network are attending. to that end, if you have any suggestions of other things that would be useful or fun, let us know!

Some other obvious possibilities as the network grows:

• Showing you the "what I needs" of people in your network
• Showing you the promotions or special offers of people in your network
• Showing you events hosted by people in your network
• Alerting you when someone in your network updates his/her profile
• Showing you Biz Talk posts and comments made by people in your network

Dan - you mention the "promotions or special offers of people" but I don't see in the profile where that feature still exists. It seems to be a biztalk catagory. Am I missing something?

Also, the feature that would inform me via email whether there are any further posts to this thread for example... did it get deleted? (I'll try to remember where I asked that question and what the question was, and swing back by from time to time to see if there is a response... as time allows:-)

DD

You're not having trouble finding them, Dennis, those two features just haven't been put back in yet.

We're developing a promotions piece that will not only list a promotion on your profile, but 1) offer Supporting Members the ability to have their promotion appear in a promotions column on the Members main page, and 2) display the promotions of everyone you've bookmarked.

The "email me when a new comment has been made" feature will most likely become a "bookmark this discussion" - then you can manage bookmarked members, events and Biz Talk discussions all in one place, on your profile.

I really like this discussion, because the question of how Biznik helps parse levels of trust in the network is absolutely crucial to its usefulness. The degree to which Biznik succeeds at doing this in innovative ways will determine not just how large Biznik can scale but - more importantly - how we move the market...that is to say: how we subvert the conventional ways that everyone else is doing things in terms of networking.

I recall hearing an acquaintance mentioning that she spent an hour "friending" on Friendster and immediately thinking what an absurd, empty enterprise that sounded like. The most useless popularity contest I could imagine.

Obviously, this is far from the Biznik model...thank god. I often find myself comparing Biznik functionality to Linked In, Friendly Favors, etc.

Concepts of how we self-identify and group-identify are central to how we relate to our own business, and the larger issues of what is right and wrong about this capitalist system that - for the moment - we must predominantly operate within.

Oh, and by the way: it'd be nice if the people you've invited into Biznik are automagically added to your network. After all, they're already the ones most clearly in your network already, in terms of Biznik! ;)

I have been invited and accepted to network requests... Im looking at it more for a future use type of thing

One layout comment: Any way to make that HUGE [!] "REMOVE" button smaller, and maybe sneak it under the photo? It takes up a LOT of real estate, and is extremely visually distracting.

Fills the page with red...

Thanks for the suggestion, Brian, I agree with you. Your comments are always so great - thank you for taking the time to share them. Keep 'em coming!