What do you want out of your Social Network?

[ThatDudeWithTheFood]

I see a lot of topics where people post about how crappy they thing social networks are for various reasons.(lame updates,boring,i only have 5 friends,no privacy)

So what exactly would you guys want the ideal social network to be?(In your ideal world no one elses)

 

[emigre]

Hot naked chicks.

 

[ThatDudeWithTheFood]

Hot naked chicks.

Forgot to emigre-proof this thread.

Meh.Too late now.

 

[tijntje_7]

My ideal social network: No social network.

 

[ThatDudeWithTheFood]

My ideal social network: No social network.

This is exactly what im asking for.

Why?

Next time I do SS Fair it'll be about social networking.

 

[Zetta_x]

I want to be able to block certain posts that fall under certain criteria from certain people. For example, my aunt had a complication during brain surgery today. All my family members are posting "Pray for her", I mean like non-stop all day on facebook I am seeing nothing but "Pray for her." While I respect that they believe doing what they call "Pray" is going to make some difference, I'm tired of seeing it.

Of course, it can be used for a lot more general purposes; filter posts that meet a certain criteria.

 

[Hells Malice]

Nexopia is (or was) my ideal Social Network.
Customizable profiles, and a huge forum system.

Social networks are completely useless without a good dedicated forum system. There's no point to them otherwise.

 

[Nebz]

Dislike button.

 

[s4mid4re]

I really don't like how privacy works in social networking sites. In my opinion, a social networking site is supposed to allow you to communicate with people who you know. It's really not a place to meet people who you personally don't know and start giving a bunch of personal info to. What I'm trying to get to is that people aren't supposed to be able to search up your name and be able to send a friend request. You do have an option to deny the friend request, but I just don't like the idea that people are searching up (and even finding) your name . It'd be good if there's an option to opt your name or any of your data from any kind of search, if possible.

But you won't be able to add anybody if your friends/family can't find you. So instead, only for the people who you want to befriends with, an activation code/link would fit better. You can just send this link to friends/family (via email or the sort), who can either chose to become or not become friends. This way, only people that you actually met in person, or people who you are close enough to know their email addresses/any contact info will be able to become friends. The only problem comes if you don't know how to contact that person, meaning you can't give your code. In this case, you can just search for that person (unless they've opted their name from the search).

IMO, you meet new people and discuss with other people in a forum (like here), not on a social networking site. You are totally anonymous in a forum except for any personal data that you chose to display. At least nobody will be able to search your name and find you in a forum.

NOTE: I've really never used facebook or the sort, so I really don't know how privacy settings work. Some of the things I suggested might already be implemented, but I really don't know. If it does, great, one reason for me to start on a social networking site.

 

[Guild McCommunist]

A forum is basically a social networking site. Look at GBAtemp now. You can put where you live (from the continent to your home address if you wish), your contact info (e-mails, instant messaging, etc), update your status (with v3), put your age, interests, etc. We have a thread to post images of ourselves, and a lot of us even have each other on Facebook. A good portion of people here know my name and I know a lot of people's names here as well.

You're usually (for a Facebook-type of social networking site) allowed to keep your info hidden from people you don't have as a friend. Is that not enough? It's your responsibility to do that and monitor who you're adding. Hell, if I even wanted to hide my name on Facebook, I could go by Guild McCommunist (actually a shit load of my sign up information for random crap has Guild McCommunist listed as my actual name) and no one would know who I really was.

Also, the point of social networking is to let people know everything you're up to. So they can keep tabs on you and stuff. For the right people, of course. Still, a lot of privacy is in your hands, not in the hands of a social network. If you're letting out too much information about yourself, that's entirely your fault. If you look at my Facebook, you can know what school I go to, my full name (first, middle, and last), religious views, political affiliation, what I enjoy in terms of music, movies, games, etc, my sexual orientation, and my relationship status. I can basically cut all this out if I wanted to.

 

[s4mid4re]

Sure, you can control what you put in there. But that's not my point. I just don't want people to be able to search/find you through a simple search system (and even find you through google, perhaps). If you could opt yourself from those searches, it would be a more secure way to talk about more private things with your family and friends. That's all I really want; opt yourself from searches, unless you want them to be added as friend. It doesn't really take that much effort to have that option, I presume.

You can use an alias instead of your real name, but say, you have a relative that lives far away. What would they think if they get a notification saying "Guild McCommunist has sent you a friend request" or something like that? I'm pretty sure they're not familiar with your alias. That's not how I want social networking sites to be.

As for the personal info in GBAtemp, not many people actually put their home address (although I do see many people who posted their images) because people (including me) want a feeling of anonymity to an extent. As for a social networking site, I want to put my address, whatsoever so that (only) my relatives and friends that I acknowledged knows more of my personal status than in a forum. A social networking site and a forum is just different for me. You may think otherwise, but it's just different for me.

 

[Gahars]

A chance to network with others socially. Facebook really covers everything I need (and a whole lot of crap I don't) right now.

 

[ThatDudeWithTheFood]

What I myself would want is where everything is completely cohesive and more built like a forum but without threads and posts.Friend requests.Mini status updates(Tweet type things).Large status updates(Facebook status type things) and more control over what is shared with who.

 

[stinkoman]

Just a few things.

 

[ThatDudeWithTheFood]

Just a few things.

I could deal with it.

 

[jamesaa]

The only "social network" i use is Twitter, and that is only because it's close to an RSS feed +1. I have no Facebook account (tried it a few years ago, but having no friends kinda makes it pointless, so deleted account) never used myspace, no need for Googles whatever it's called? Circles? I know it's not Buzz as that failed big time. IDK it's something I can't remember right now ,

I have no friends, therefore need no social network. Twitter just happens to be more convenient than 1,000,000 different RSS feeds

TBH without Twitter I wouldn't know 90% of what is going on in the world, I rarely talk with anyone at work, i don't watch TV or visit news sites, my source of news is Twitter and GBAtemp

I find "status updates" pointless (hence mild annoyance at the "what's on your mind" add-on to GBATemp, but at least it's not in your face about it...), as are friend requests, stupid cat pictures, mini games that require £999,999,999 to be any "good" at the game, and 99% of anything that for whatever pathetic reason is currently popular amongst most people.

/end slightly drunken rant...

tl;dr I use my social network as a reasonable way of keeping up-to-date with things I am slightly interested in, (e.g Games, iOS, Android etc.)

 

[Cyan]

Part1:

I would like to be able to decide if we show or hide the fact that we are friend with someone else on HIS page.


For example, my brother want me to create a facebook account so I can see my nephew pictures he is posting there.
I don't want my other family member to know that I have an account, I don't want them to ask me as friend (which I'll reject).

So, I would like to have my brother as friend, but that my name doesn't appear on my brother's profile as his friend.
Setting "hidden" option for search engine, but still being listed on other user's profile page is completely dumb.

Same for comments for example. Posting a comment on a picture/blog, that either my name or my entire comment is not shown to specific peoples.
I think we can decide that on our OWN profile, but not on other user's profiles.

I would like a more controllable privacy setting.



PS: Yeah, I know, I can just create a fake account name, but I won't do that either. I prefer not having one at all.

being able to add gbatemp friend+online friends+my brother, but not being shown by other friend of friend, that's what I want a social network to be


Part2:
I don't like abusive contract.

 

[PolloDiablo]

My ideal social network: No social network.

 

[wasim]

i'm actually happy with the social network at the moment

 

[Skelletonike]

Huh... What I want in a social network... Well, for starters, I hate how random people are able to find our profiles and send frienship requests, I also hate how lots of people think that having lots of faceboo/myspace/hi5/etc, friends is a good thing and a reason to brag about. I prefer simple things, sure, maybe it can have a few games and all that stuff, but there's no need to ask so much personal info in most sites, well, so far, google+ has been the most decent social network I've seen, but I guess thats because it's new... Sooner or later it'll become like facebook and the others.

A good social network should do things for you, like, groups already existing (like on google+ where they have friends, family and people you know)) and you don't have to create them for the most part, it could also have an online music player of some sort where people could choose their fave songs and maybe people that also liked those songs could be added to some sort of group where the people you wanted to know but still didn't stayed. xP

Well, I guess it's kinda hard to specify, mostly because I get bored of social networks quite easily.