Stephan Nedregaard

Tech Preview: Friend connection finder

Friday, October 28, 2005 1:32:18 PM

I just completed a small demo of a new feature. This allows you to enter a username from any user's page and see how the two users relate with regards to the Friend network.

For example, if A is a friend of mine and B is a friend of A, I get the path "stephan => A => B", telling me the shortest connection between me and B.

You can try this out by testing
http://my.opera.com/username/demo/network.pl

Where you replace username with any username in the community.
E.g.:
http://my.opera.com/stephan/demo/network.pl

Any good ideas as to how to integrate this into the community are very much welcome.
(Oh, and this is not the feature I mentioned yesterday. That one is delayed till next week)

Enjoy!

Warning: A new feature will be added soon! (Panic!)New future: "News" on your personal pages

Comments

Idan AdarYtseJam # Friday, October 28, 2005 2:09:31 PM

okcupid.com does something similiar, integrated to their website. Pretty sweet.

Jere # Friday, October 28, 2005 3:51:19 PM

I'm unsure what it will be useful for...

edit: I'm so bright today

Didn't see the "username" in the URL (I even wondered to myself why you posted seemingly the same URL in your entry...)

Jere # Friday, October 28, 2005 4:00:22 PM

I wonder what algorithm you use to find the shortest path. Because the tool doesn't do that.

(for instance, try to find the connection from you to manni - the given reverse is different and shorter)

edit: I'm showing off my brightness again.

Apparently it doesn't consider A a friend of B if B has set A as a friend of his, but A himself hasn't set B as one of his. Kind of weird though that you can be one-way friends.

Stephan Nedregaardstephan # Friday, October 28, 2005 8:53:10 PM

The idea of one-way friends is that even though someone says you are a friend of his that is not neccessarily true. Therefore, we do have the concept of "mutual friends" in the backend. However, this algorithm does not consider mutuality.

Kay FourKayFour # Saturday, October 29, 2005 2:33:29 PM

What a cool idea! But to find mutual friends, I click on "Friendly People" or "Friend Network." This way seems much easier.

K4

Fatimahzenya # Monday, October 31, 2005 11:07:03 PM

HI Stephan,

On Overstock.com < auctions> we have our network of friends as well they are shown in our profiles with icons.

Also these people < friends> are connected to their friends just as you are stating here.. it's a great way of networking for business as well as friendships.

Eve

Idan AdarYtseJam # Tuesday, November 1, 2005 7:06:33 AM

It is next week now! What's TEH feature?