Should myLot allow followers as well as friends?

Greenwood, Mississippi
March 19, 2009 10:03am CST
I'm generally not so picky when it comes to myLot friends. As long as someone isn't a spammer and doesn't post anything too offensive, I tend to accept most friend requests. This strategy has worked pretty well for me so far, though I admit I haven't always done as good a job as I should do when it comes to keeping up with my friends' discussions. Anyway, I know other people are much more reluctant to accept friend requests than I am, and I can understand some of their reasons for feeling that way. Accepting a friend request means allowing someone you might not know very well to send you private messages, for instance. Also, some might wonder how someone you may have just met can truly be called a "friend"; it seems common to get to know someone on myLot better only AFTER you've accepted a friend request which may seem backwards to those who only call a select few people friends. Because of these issues with the friend system, I've often wondered if a "follow" feature like what is on Twitter might be useful on myLot as well...not as a replacement to the friends feature but rather as a complement to it. This would enable someone to follow another user's discussions (and get discussion alerts if they want them) without gaining the privilege of sending that user private messages and without earning the title of "friend". Instead of having to wait for a friend request to be accepted, you could automatically start following another user. The big downside to this idea is that it might make cyberstalking easier, and that is a serious problem. Also, it might make people use the friend feature less and maybe people would truly make fewer "real" friends on myLot as a result. Would you "follow" people if such a feature was available? I think I would use it to some extent...there are a few users who post insightful discussions who I'd follow but probably wouldn't friend because I've never conversed much with them in the past. All in all, I think it would be a good feature to add though there are some cons to the idea as well.
2 people like this
4 responses
@mimpi1911 (25464)
• India
21 Mar 09
I think, this is a good idea if I want to follow a user with great insightful posts, as you have said. Some users are not really friends but I love being a part of their discussions. The feature would help in such cases. Indeed we tend to use the term 'friends' too loosely these days. So 'followers' is perfectly OK along with 'friends'.
1 person likes this
7 Aug 09
I think Twitter did a revolutionary thing with this thing called Followers. Now we won't ever need friends online, we just need followers HAHA.
@IMEzekieL (498)
7 Aug 09
Hey, that's not a bad idea. I believe that the blogging platform called Tumblr http://www.tumblr.com/ had implemented the same thing. I'm also seeing some Blogspot blogs with a widget called Followers. It would be great to see myLot having this kind of feature. This would greatly reduce spamming and can prevent spammers from contacting you in the first place.
@zed_k4 (17589)
• Singapore
14 May 09
I would love to have this feature as well. It can then be differentiated between a 'friend' and a 'follower'. It would be cool then; something like in Tweet. And then once a mylot user has gotten on the comfort zone, then he or she can choose to add that follower as a friend. That's some great idea there, I do have some fantasies when it comes to mylot. But overall, I'm a quite satisfied member. Good discussion here, echomonster.
@Canellita (12029)
• United States
7 Apr 09
You can follow people's discussions by going to their profiles. I accept all friend requests since it is a reciprocal process in supporting discussion participattion and I feel if someone read something I posted and wants to be my friend on myLot it is a compliment.