On Monday we launched some new features to FriendUp. The most notable, is a tool that enables you to upload notes and pictures to each of your specific interests. By adding content to your interests, your connections can then comment on what you have posted, which hopefully sparks some great conversations!
A few examples on how this can be used: Say you have a certain breed of dog, you can upload a picture of your dog under that breed. Or, if you like cooking, you can share your favorite recipe by adding a note to the “cooking” interest. You can also post notes of your favorite TV show episodes, movies, sports, philosophy, the possibilities are just endless.
The idea behind this tool: Since you already share the interest with your connection, adding a note or a photo is a great way to start a conversation. It also adds a new dimension of depth to the experience of getting to know your connections.
Over the next couple months, our plan is to further expand this idea – to enable people to connect via specific interests. This would be an addition to our current system of running daily connections based on people who share the greatest amount of your interests.
Another feature that was just released, is a concept we developed called “Photo Fairness”. In order to see pictures others have uploaded, you will need to have uploaded your own. Hopefully this tool encourages more people to share their pictures.
And, we now have a box that encourages people to send messages to others who they send Friend Up requests to. One complaint we have had based on our original version, is that often people would just send Friend Up requests without saying anything. Perhaps this is due to the “Friend Collecting” phenomena we see through other social networking sites. As a result, the act of sending a “Friend Up” request often lacked any substance and would bore people after a period of time. This adjustment should be the first step towards improving this experience. In the future, we plan to further refine the Friend Up request process, so that it fosters more communication and a substantive experience. One such idea for this – is requiring not simply a message be sent to the other person, but a substantive comment on a shared interest.
We also have a series of more minor updates that should help provide everyone with a better experience.
We are looking forward to future updates of our site. The idea behind each update, is we hope to further increase the way people engage and interact with others. Our site is never a final product – always a work in motion 
Over the next few months we have many great things in store, and we are all very excited. To be continued…
