LATEST ACTIVITY FEED: THINKING ABOUT REMOVING OURS... WHAT DO YOU THINK?

[Rich Mbariket]

All, After 2 1/2 years of running our network http://webseriesnetwork.com I am considering removing the Latest Activity feed altogether. Because activity on our network moves so fast I see no purpose for it. Plus it takes up valuable real estate we could utilize for something else. Other than showing recent activity, it serves no purpose at all. I would love to know what you all think about the LAF on your network and why you keep it on. Looking forward to reading your posts. Thanks All. -Rich

[Kim Newberg aka imagesbykim]

Hi,

Yes sometimes I agree with you that the activity feed is taking up space on my main page its the same with top content.

Yes I like the idea that perhaps on the "more" link it could just link to a whole page of the latest activity. Then if you have missed a whole day or maybe more, you could go back and catch up. Or just have a separate page for latest activity using the tabs and take it off main all together.

The other option is to stick it down at the bottom of the page and advise members that is where it has moved to.

And yes LOL I also agree that it is supposed to be the "latest" activity not a journal.....

So much information, so little space, and never enough hours in a day.....

kim

[Thomas Hoey]

It is essential on mine. However, I have the "whats my status" activated and get a nice flow of traffic at times, from it. And it accomplishes what I want; which is to allow folks to communicate. You pointed out that it moves so fast...but upon checking your site out, it only has 4 activities listed over a period of several hours. That would be drastically slow, in my way of thinking. Especially when two of the activities are yours! Personally I have mine up at the top in the big featured column (2 columns). My members are not bothering much with anything but the main page, now, with the advent of the Timeline/Profiles on Facebook. Not much point to personal pages any longer, but as a meeting and communication device for those of a like mind, the main page still has merit. Along with the ability to sync with your Facebook page and groups.

[Jane]

Just set mine to invisible. I think I'm the only one who looks at it, it changes so fast. I've blog posts showing instead. More helpful to site users.

[Stephanie Sikorski]

how do you set it to invisible? can I set other features to invisible?

[Jane]

I set the number of items to show as "0". The box cannot be seen by other people then.

[Stephanie Sikorski]

BRILLIANT!!!

[Nor Cal Social Media]

Hi Rich,

Ning pages are generally designed to reflect a full picture of the community’s activity. You would generally see extensive feeds of content from recent activity, photos, videos, forums, blogs, members, etc. Doing this makes sense when you want people to be attracted to the "quantitative" action of the network. It can also work "qualitatively" in the sense the content is related to the intended theme of the site. The trade-offs for this approach include assuring the quality of how that activity and media reflect the theme to create interest, what I call scrolling navigation burden associated with browsing long column pages, and the probability of “decline”- that if people do not find exactly what they are looking for immediately, see some things they do not like, or are overwhelmed by too much distracting information and choices, they are very likely to decline signing up or contacting you.

Best,

Anthony