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

[SweetPotato]

often wonder about doing the same but back out. I thought about asking members to see if they would miss it. let me know how it goes

[Ceddy J]

The best way to combat that is a solution I learned from JenSocial a while back, Feeding The LAF To Facebook Page. Now I Know Some Of You Are Like "We Don't Want To Push Them To Facebook", But In Hence That Has Helped Grow My Site and Keep People Excited About Sharing Content. I use a service called Twitterfeed which does a great job of sharing to the fan page. You can even set the rate at which it goes.

With what yall have going on I think that would be a perfect solution in my opinion.

[Robert]

If we could put the Latest Activity on it own page .. we could remove it from the home page but still have it present on the network.  just my thought

[Stephanie Sikorski]

This is interesting, how does one have anything on ning that is not on home page? I want blogs on my site but only from the tabs not in a box on home page. How do i do that?

[Deb W.]

I think this works....  Go to the box on your home page and click on edit. Look for the SHOW # POSTS. Change it so it says 0 (zero) and click on save.  Since you are the admin/NC, you'll still see the empty box there, but I don't think your regular members will see it at all.  I tried this, then logged off and the blog box on the main page had disappeared....

Let me know if this works for you.

[Writer Chick {Diane}]

Other than showing recent activity, it serves no purpose at all.

I couldn't help but chuckle a little bit at this.  "Showing recent activity" is what a latest activity feed is supposed to do, so it is fulfilling the purpose for which it was created.  LOL   

[Steve Cyrkin]

Rich,

I think that our activity stream tells people how dynamic our site is and let's them pick their favorite people and topics to read, so I keep it front and center. But maybe I'm missing the point. I do keep on thinking I'll remove things like friending notifications and such, but I like to keep that in the mind of visitors and members too.

What's your logic...am I missing something?

[Bousal]

I AGREE

[Scott Bishop]

I don't know if you can do this or not (maybe in the future) but have your LAF show only the content of what's most important to your site like videos or pictures being up loaded, an event being posted, blog or forum post (maybe a particular forum topic), a member joining (maybe content from select members only).

Anyways, if you can do something like this I think it would slow down your feed (lucky you-btw) and concentrate on what you feel is key to your site.

You could always change up the above once a week to get your members to focus on an area that needs attention.

This could be a win win. You keep it and it becomes more useful.

[Writer Chick {Diane}]

Wouldn't enabling the "Top News" part of the feed slow it down some?  

Nick Barr:   It’s ideal for busy Ning Networks that want to spotlight top content that maybe needs to stick around in the activity feed for a bit longer than most activity.

Here's the link to the main article: Introducing Social Integration and Top News

[Scott Bishop]

Ha, so there is a way. kudos

[Bousal]

DEPENDS ON THE PURPOSE OF YOUR SITE I GUESS, FOR MINE IT IS NECESSARY