New keywords on the homepage?

As some of you have noticed, the homepage changes slightly on a day to day basis based on the keywords as supplied by the community.

As time has gone on, we've noticed some folks prefer to type in actual sentences in the keyword field (which is perfectly fine) but at the same time, the so-called "filler" words in these sentences shouldn't appear on the front page and for a long while they did. 78 members inputted '.' as a keyword!

Thus, today I deployed a tweak to the algorithm to remove such filler words from appearing on the front page. Moving forward, you shouldn't see such filler words.

The buddystumbler team recommends that users input keywords in the form of nouns and verbs that describe who they are as a person. The beauty of keywords (also known as tags) is that they can be descriptive yet terse and by inputting a good collection of keywords you discover quite a bit about who someone is.

Here's a great example of keyword usage by new member itsange. Yim and I are working this weekend so expect some instability on production as we deploy new changes.

poll results: week of 3/19

1. would you prefer to search by city rather than zip code?



2. do you think users should be able to give negative feedbacks?



3. would you like searching by distance to change?



4. would you like searching by age ranges to change?



thanks for all of you who voted! we've posted a new set of polls, so please check them out!

page text!

The astute among you stumblers may have noticed that we recently started adding more page text to the site. Having come from the purist school of user interface design, Yim and I created the site to be as usable as possible. Our thought was that it should be so easy to use that page text should not be required.

Sadly, as time has gone on - we haven't been able to get away with that. Some of these reasons have to do with the nomenclature we choose to use to describe elements on the site; e.g. shout outs and high fives. We had hoped that they would be self-explanatory but when one of my friends, who is quite intelligent, said she couldn't understand the difference between a high five and shout out, I knew we were in trouble.

As a result, we've added page text. We hope this change will encourage users to add higher quality profiles in order to create better virtual connections for everyone!

your votes count!

you might have noticed that we've added a new "take polls" link to the site. if you haven't, you can find the link on the front page right below the "take a quick tour" button, or once you're logged in, on the top left next to the "tour" and "search" buttons.

the buddystumbler team thinks that we now have enough users on the site to start running things in a more democratic way. we used to make all the decisions on how things should look or work in the past, but now it's time for us to pass the baton to our users. so in the next few weeks, we are going to post a new set of polls every week and ask you to vote on them. most of these poll questions are derived from feedbacks we got from users over the past few months. your votes will help us decide whether or not we should build or change certain things. however, please don't think that you are limited to whatever we ask you. if you have any suggestions or feedbacks, you can either email them to us at buddystumbler@buddystumbler.com or tell us when you happen to be chatting with us. ;)

please vote and make yourself heard.

Stumbling tips

I wanted to take a moment and talk about how to stumble and safety on the site. As some of you know by now, I actively use the site (its clear that some users have met stumbled upon me by now). Through this process, we've learned a number of things. So, here we go!

Tips

1. When initiating the first IM session, say who you are and that you met them on www.buddystumbler.com. If you're adding someone to your buddy list, you are often prompted for a "description" - particularly Yahoo! - again, identify yourself and explain you're from buddystumbler.

2. Treat each other with respect in order to garner more high fives. Users with more active profiles (such as shout outs and high fives) generally have a higher probability of attaining more matches.

3. Do not make the assumption that someone is looking for romance unless explicitly stated in their profile. Your stumbled upon buddy may find this intimidating as it can be construed as a form of sexual harassment.

4. In terms of who initiates the conversation - it seems reasonable that the person who initiated the original request should try to initiate the conversation first.

5. To keep the conversation going, insure that you have enough keywords in your profile and review your buddy's keywords while you are chatting with them. Without keywords or a meaningful description, there's very little for people to talk about without shooting in the dark. You will have a better experience if you invest a little more time in your profile. Finally, similar to the advice given in the movie the "40-year-old Virgin," ask questions!

Safety advice

1. Buddystumbler users come from a wide variety of sources - some from the industry and some from search engine queries. The breadth and the variety of the user base is generally a positive thing. However, from time to time we do have users who are part of the "swinger" culture. buddystumbler can be many things, but buddystumbler is not a swinger site. Users who explicitly state they are seeking sexual encounters will be removed from the site. Similarly, users who post offensive pictures either on the site or IM pictures to other buddies will also be promptly removed. To our stumblers out there, if you see such users please flag them or identify the problem in the contact us page. We have been aggressive and responsive when it comes to these matters.

2. Use IM information you are comfortable with sharing. Unfortunately, IM usernames are often if not always the same as your email. If you do not want someone to have access to your primary email account - please use an address that is "junk."

3. Use IM information/addresses that do not reveal your full name. This is for your own safety to prevent stalkers and other deviants.

4. Do not provide an email address or use your full name as your login name. Buddystumbler has very loose restrictions on what can be used for a login name - be creative and take advantage of this! You can change your login name anytime on the registration page.

Welcome Yahoo users!

Greetings!

This is just a quick post to welcome all of our new users who've found us through our Yahoo! advertising campaign. Thanks for signing up! The buddystumbler community welcomes you!

where we are today...

It's been about two months since we've gone live, so I thought it would be a good time reflect on how far the site has come along and where we're going.

Through our brief ride, we've had our share of ups and downs. buddystumbler has without a doubt morphed over time thanks to user feedback and it is unquestionably better than what we had originally conceived it to be. We've made a number of key changes to address usability and have even tweaked the homepage to be more colorful and inviting. We've featured stronger branding, a tour page, and focused our marketing efforts on our core markets - people who actually want to meet people rather than the industry at large. This has helped keep traffic modest on our budget-minded, shared-host account so that the site is available (as much as possible) to our real users.

As of this writing, we have 558 registrations. Compared to where we started off with 3 registrations back in December, this is 18,600% growth! All kidding aside, while the number of registrations hardly suggests buddystumbler is a success, we have achieved enough mass so that folks can find a person or two worth interacting with. To Yim and I, that is really exciting! Everyday that goes by, there are new people who sign on who come from very diverse backgrounds.

On occasion, Yim and I have had to police the profiles. However, for the most part we've left the profiles as is.

As the site has grown, Yim and I have won over allies to our cause. Noteable ones include drizzle, who recently plugged us in one of his youtube comedy programs, ellechique, an early adopter who's still with us, kentuckyfried, the runner-up in our friends and family contest, and kopykat who has begun to play an advisory role for our advertising initiatives.

Some of you who have been following this blog may be wondering what happened to Amit? Unfortunately, Amit has decided to part ways in order to focus on his school work. It was a tough loss for buddystumbler, but we wish him all the best. For buddystumbler, this creates opportunity. As the summer draws near, we're looking for young blood to expand the buddystumbler team. If you think this site might be fun to work on, we want to hear from you! We're a two man show right now, but we need more help.

We've explicitly advertised for programmers, however we could use some help in other functions as well; particularly in marketing. If you're a believer in the site and believe you can contribute, we want to hear from you!

We have some big plans for the site and need help making it a reality. In the works, we are cooking up a version 2.0 of buddystumbler which we think will be game changing. We're targetting a mid-summer release.

In the near term, we're actively drawing up plans to launch in other English speaking countries: specifically Canada and the United Kingdom. This would of course, also require us to allow users to specify their ICQ addresses as well. We're investigating how to import and integrate Canadian and UK postal codes and working out the details accordingly.

For our loyal users, keep the faith - we'll find more believers. Help us spread the word and happy stumbling!