We started off with Friendster opening up Friendster Platform for developers to take advantage of. We saw the first few widgets started off by 5 companies, and here we are 1 month after the announcement of Friendster Platform. While the addition of widgets is good for the users, it needs to done better or it will not be very welcomed.
New Faces But Needs More Interactivity
We see additions into the categories of friendster widgets some new faces into the widgets directory, some noticeable additions are Grab.com’s Gold Miner game which could help you kill some past times. While the games are fun, it does not provide interactivity between users. There isn’t any score ranking, no option to pit multiple users into competitions or challenges. Interactivity between users are important as they keep users tied down to the games longer and the benefits ripped from it increases.
Friendster Platform isn’t being utilize to its full potential isn’t it?
Friendster Widgets Not Profile Friendly
A profile needs to be neat, nice and appealing to the users. It should not have everything cluster together and drags the whole profile page a long way down. Friendster widgets however did exactly like that! Try adding a few more widgets into your profile with the default profile layout and you will notice your Testimonial & Comments box being drag down to nowhere. You will see all the widgets being fit into a box of their own and takes the space before or after your testimonial & coments box.
Moreover, there is no way for users to rearrange the widgets in the profile page, and everything comes in the sequence of time you add the application, with the highest application on your profile being the latest addition. Anyone sense the need of AJAX to give users more flexible placing of widgets on their own? Some applications do not require large space to function well, and the option to utilize the column below the advertisements is a plus.
Where’s The Hide Function?
Users should be given a function to hide widgets that they do not wish to be appeared on the profile page while still using it in the background, such as keeping game score or application database. If this is not the case, the users will be forced to prioritize the widgets and ignore other less frequently used widgets to avoid letting the profile page being a page loading hog.
More to be done by Friendster in fine tuning Friendster widgets to be aesthetically appealing to the users and giving them more flexibility in the handling of Friendster widgets.
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