Kohlmannj's dashboard

Kohlmannj marked one of Carl Black's replies in Brightkite as useful. Carl Black replied to the idea "Attach Privacy Level to Location".

Kohlmannj shared an idea in GroupList on June 12, 2008 04:31:

What do you think about adding pictures to a profile?

I'd like to suggest some form of picture to be included with the profile. So many times I meet enough people that I forget their name or meet two people with the same first name. It would be awesome to "put a face to the name", if you catch my drift.

Kohlmannj marked one of Ernie Ambrose's replies in Brightkite as useful. Ernie Ambrose replied to the idea "Attach Privacy Level to Location".

Martin May's reply to "Attach Privacy Level to Location" was just promoted to the most useful! Kohlmannj and 10 other people think it's one of the best replies.

We are considering the idea of adding a "always private" flag that you can add to placemarks...if you're at the location the placemark points to, everything you do there will be done in private mode, without having to excplicitly enter that mode.

How does that sound?

Kohlmannj marked one of Lesley's replies in Brightkite as useful. Lesley replied to the idea "I would like blackberry support, maybe, plz?".

joe's reply to "Twitter refuses to uphold Terms of Service" was just promoted to the most useful! Kohlmannj and 3 other people think it's one of the best replies.

I think there is a TOS issue, and would hope that Twitter would stick to what is clearly written there. But who reads the TOS? Not many people, they just click to agree and that is that. But a community, which is what Twitter is (like it or not Mr. Communication Utility) as evidenced by this thread if nothing else, needs guidelines. I would propose a set of community guidelines like flickr (*you know the guy, don't be that guy*) that state the general rules of the road. Then, violations of those guidelines can be reported, dealt with, and the community can be at ease again.

Because at the end of the day, communication (via photos, text, video, etc.) is community. Don't hide your heads in the sand.

Oh, and I would be happy to take a shot writing the guidelines, with the support of all y'all out there!

A comment on the problem "Twitter refuses to uphold Terms of Service" in Twitter:

So why are you siding with Twitter then? And come on...do you really think Ariel is doing this just for kicks? If so, I've got some great ocean-front property to sell you in Colorado. – Kohlmannj, on May 23, 2008 05:33

A comment on the problem "Twitter refuses to uphold Terms of Service" in Twitter:

How big of a company do you have to be to listen to what your users are saying? How big to follow your own TOS? Again, it isn't really open to interpretation here. Quite simply, they are breaking their own contract with the user. – Kohlmannj, on May 23, 2008 05:14

A comment on the problem "Twitter refuses to uphold Terms of Service" in Twitter:

FAIL!! Why do you guys continue to dig the hole deeper? Methinks this issue is going to come back and bite you in the ass. But hey...what's a little bad press, right? – Kohlmannj, on May 23, 2008 01:42

A comment on the problem "Twitter refuses to uphold Terms of Service" in Twitter:

Absolutely right! – Kohlmannj, on May 22, 2008 22:56

A comment on the problem "Twitter refuses to uphold Terms of Service" in Twitter:

I totally agree with this. Who cares if they just change the TOS? Yeah, that gets them out from behind the legal side of it, but for God's sake Twitter: DO THE RIGHT THING! – Kohlmannj, on May 22, 2008 22:14

A comment on the problem "Twitter refuses to uphold Terms of Service" in Twitter:

@ZachForrest That is *exactly* what I was thinking. They're not just the firewood, they're throwing gasoline on the flames! – Kohlmannj, on May 22, 2008 21:59

A comment on the problem "Twitter refuses to uphold Terms of Service" in Twitter:

"our focus is on providing a service"
Even a service that clearly breaks your own TOS? Care to elaborate? This *clearly* is a cut-and-dry case. There is no room for alternative judgment. – Kohlmannj, on May 22, 2008 21:28

Kohlmannj replied on May 22, 2008 19:54 to the problem "Twitter refuses to uphold Terms of Service" in Twitter:

What a lame, weak, and otherwise limp-wristed approach twitter has taken to solving this problem.

TERRIBLE example you are setting, twitter. Just terrible.

Jack, if you're listening, you need to buck up and take control here. Otherwise, you are clearly not fit to run that company. It is *directly* your responsibility to ensure that this kind of crap doesn't continue to happen on your company's site, and any sort of apathy to this situation shows a distinct lack of leadership on your part.

Boo!

Digg this thread! Click on the Digg link at the upper right corner of the thread in the "Share" box. People need to see this.

Kohlmannj started following the idea "I would like blackberry support, maybe, plz?" in Brightkite.

Kohlmannj replied on May 05, 2008 16:11 to the idea "One more "zone" of privacy between "City" and "Exact"" in Brightkite:

There are a couple points to make here.
1) ZIP codes have very little to do with population density, and actually can span multiple cities. See Wikipedia for more info on this.
2) Fred's stream is different depending on who is looking at it anyway, so this would have zero impact on it. When a close friend looks, it would list Fred's exact location. When I look, it would add the "Fuzzy" modifier.

I'm not saying that I have the answers on how to make this happen. I'm simply saying that the service is useless to me as is (and wouldn't much improve with ZIP code). However, if friendship levels could be defined by distance, then it would be enormously useful.

From an end user perspective, the "How" isn't so important as the "What". If it can't be done, then so be it. But the difficulty of implementation has no bearing on whether or not it is useful to me as is.

The biggest question in my mind is what I listed in my last post: I am shown the distance to complete strangers in my "Around me" tab, so why can't I define that for my friends?

Kohlmannj replied on May 04, 2008 22:02 to the idea "One more "zone" of privacy between "City" and "Exact"" in Brightkite:

Perhaps, but I still like the idea of distance. Some Zip codes are pretty big, which proves your point even more about being "a world away" if you're in the city.

Instead of "Fred is in 94608", it would say "Fred checked in within 800 meters of you". You can already see this functionality in the sidebar of the "Around me" tab with regard to complete strangers, so why can't I apply it to my friends? It would appear that the API is already there and functional.

Kohlmannj replied on May 04, 2008 05:14 to the idea "One more "zone" of privacy between "City" and "Exact"" in Brightkite:

That would be perfect, and exactly what I need. Thanks for your comments. I wonder if this is something the development team is working on? Do others feel this way?

Kohlmannj replied on May 04, 2008 04:43 to the idea "One more "zone" of privacy between "City" and "Exact"" in Brightkite:

Clearly, they don't "cover the basic privacy needs of everyone", otherwise I wouldn't be making this post.

My point is that I have more than three levels of friendship in my life, and it would be really nice to have additional options.

Kohlmannj shared an idea in Brightkite on May 04, 2008 03:16:

One more "zone" of privacy between "City" and "Exact"

Forgive me if I'm just missing this feature, but it does me absolutely no good to know that my friends checked into my city. Perhaps they aren't close enough friends to want to give me their exact location (especially until you guys get the "always private" tag worked out), but they would be comfortable giving out slightly more information than just the city.

For example, divide the city into blocks or some other smaller division. That way, for those people who don't want me to necessarily know their *exact* location, I can at least know that we're on the same block/street/neighborhood/within x distance/etc.

Is this already available and I'm just missing it?

Thank you!