On the whole, the community feedback for the new version of Blog Friends has been fantastic: we’re really flattered that so many of you are passionate enough about our app to contact us and tell us your views. However, whilst much of the feedback has been positive, there’s one area that’s been a real disaster: the profile page
Many of you have got in touch to say you’re unhappy that the profile page of Blog Friends is displaying “strangers” in the “River”. With hindsight, we really should have seen this coming and we agree that the profile box should be about you and your friends/favourites - i.e. not about people you don’t know.
So we’re going to fix this issue very shortly. Hurrah!
Our quick fix is to make it so you only see your friends posts (so long as they have written some!). For most of you this means no more strangers; new users without any Blog Friends will naturally still get mostly people they don’t know.
We’re also looking at improving the profile box in other ways. However, we’d like your thoughts about it before we work it into the app, so there will be a blog post about this shortly where you can post your feedback.
Thanks again to all those people who took the time to voice their thoughts. We’re sorry that some of the changes weren’t great for you, but with your help we can make Blog Friends the best app it can be.

13 comments on “Strangers in your app? We’re fixing it.”
Or at least less strangers…more friends - maybe you should implement a slide for this rather than an on/off ’switch’
Cheers,
Dean
www.collins.net.pr/blog
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=674616722
Thanks Dean.
Very shortly (once we’ve tested it) the profile box will display friends only for most people. However, we are also changing the River (on the canvas page) to supply you more friends. I’ll announce the update here when it’s working as we’d like.
Regarding the slider, that’s something quite a few people have mentioned so we are definitely looking at it. It’s been quite hard for us to get the balance of familiarity versus discovery perfect for everyone, but we’ll get there.
UPDATE: we’ve just made the changes I listed in the post. Your profile pages will update within 90mins. Keep us posted with your views.
Any chance of setting it up so that when blog friends notices that I’ve posted to one of my blogs, a news item can go into my mini-feed?
Hi Frank. This is something we plan to do. Facebook recently changed the way they handle this feature and we haven’t had the chance to adjust to the new version. It is very high up our priority list though.
I liked the strangers and figured I could use the sliders to get rid of the blogs I didn’t - I was getting to see some interesting gear…if I have used the slider to indicate I want to see more from a blog belonging to a stranger, will it still appear?
http://katebuchanan.blogspot.com/
Nuggets of Potential Shame
Hi there,
I liked the old friends of friends idea - I like reading strangers but I like to know where they’ve come from, and how come I’m reading them. I like not to have so many strangers, on the other hand I have been introduced to some really interesting bloggers, so I’d like the filtering slide thing, please.
But won’t this mean I don’t get “Friends’ friends blogs” anymore? I still want to see strangers’ blogs coz I can visit my friends’ blogs anytime…
@Kate. Once you tell it you like a stranger, that person is no longer a stranger so you will continue to see stuff from them.
@Everyone. The profile page version of the app will not display strangers, but the canvas page at http://apps.facebook.com/blogfriends *will* show strangers… albeit slightly less.
We’re really glad you’re finding it fun/useful discovering new people… if we can get the right balance of displaying a) “people you know” in the profile box and b) “discovery” in the canvas page (with a slider if needed) then the app will be great for everyone.
I’ve always enjoyed the friends of friends feature, as it works both ways… I find new bloggers, and they find me!
I wonder would it be possible for ’strangers’ blogs to be used when friends haven’t blogged for a while?
Some friends’ blogs don’t seem to be updated as often as others, and so you sometimes seem to see the same posts in the feed for a while…
Cheers, Joff
Sorry Jof, double-f’d you…
Allan, sorry not to have picked up on your comment sooner. Our idea is to give you a great mix of favourites (”friends”) and others in your full-page River, while your profile box will become a great showcase for your favourite posts, bloggers and of course your own blog posts (all optional).
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