Mes Amies

I want to really delve into the whole network aspect of this project. In looking around for things I want to do to integrate sense of community, the obvious social networking sites out there are facebook and myspace. I want there to be a large network, but like i said in my last post i don't want it to feel to bloggy. Therefor I want some in between of the two. I think Myspace and facebook can be to fake with the facade that people are great friends and this and that, which isn't a wrong thing, just I want the project to feel less like you are just shopping around for information/friends etc.

BUT, I 100% want to include community into the project. People are telling the stories, so inherently they are part of the stories and networks of people with like stories and such. I feel like it will be easier finding people you have common interests in if two people went through the same experience, or at the same place. Therefore, there should be a portion of the site, where you can have a profile, customizable with "notes". The focus is obviously the experiences, so giving people the ability to blog/bulletin and whatnot like myspace seems overdramatic for purposes, though i do not want to limit myself, so I do want to ask what people think about how much/how little to expand upon.

The things I am thinking about are:
1. Information - name, age, likes, dislikes, that whole spiel
2. maps - recent places you have mapped and tagged , along with people who's maps network with yours
3. customization - people should feel like they have their own little map on the WWW with the site.

I am open to suggestions. what better way to see what people want by asking them. It will be a community abode on the internet, so people should be able to control it, with some minor walls to keep from abusing. Like recently, I have been getting SPAM friends (not even like people wanting to see naked pictures of me, just advertisement friends), which is a problem, so it is a good thing I still have my "design for community book" because i think reading over some sections in that will help me determine the level I want to achieve.