

how popular are friends lists in social news sites? - sugarfree

I'm writing a niche social news site, and I'm wondering if I should bother including "friends" functionality. I've used digg, reddit &#38; slashdot for years and have never felt it necassary to maintain a list of friends. <p>it's a news site, not a social network, so I'm not sure how useful it would be. what do you think?
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nostrademons
It's important, but it's not important for the initial release. Because when
you're just starting out, nobody on the site has any friends (that visit the
site, at least ;-)).

Friends lists seem more useful after a community grows, because they let it
fragment. That seems to be the only way to avoid the scale problems that
plague bigger news sites like Digg and Reddit. If you're truly niche and don't
anticipate growing, you won't need them at all. (But then, if you're truly
niche, you've really got a hobby and not a startup...)

I'd put them off till your users ask for them, basically.

