Olly F's dashboard

When I post a note to BrightKite, I have it automatically sent to Twitter. I really like that BrightKite shows the character limit for a note - 140 - but because I have this forwarding to Twitter, I'd like it to have some way of taking into account the number of characters that the additional BrightKite URL adds to my note (and therefore to my Twitter post).

For instance, if I post a 140 character note that goes to Twitter, it is shortened on Twitter because the BrightKite URL is added too. The only way round it is subtracting 25 characters from my 140 limit, so I know when to stop typing to create a note that shows in full on Twitter.

(Also, this is further compounded because I have Twitter feeding my Facebook updates, which means my updates may have a message then a "..." cutting off the end of the status update.

Following on from the idea of a handshake to trade user-contact-cards, I'd like to see this idea expanded upon.

Two users could handshake with Friend Book and the app would then share and collect social network details - Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Flickr - that each user had pre-configured in the app.

Sending: The user can choose what data they want to send in a handshake (so they store all their account details but may not always want to send everything to everyone). In terms of UI there could be a number of tick-boxes, or a pre-set configuration that can be editable just before initiating the handshake (in case, for example, a user didn't want to share her Facebook or Twitter details).

Receiving: The received information would essentially be a selection of requests to connect, friend, follow etc. on various networks. The receiver can then browse through the invitations and 'activate' the ones that they choose. Friend Book could initiate the 'activation' whereby, if possible via social network APIs, the app would send an add/friend/follow request to the other user's account.

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An example of a product that makes use of the same idea is My Name is E. You may be familiar with it, if not, here's the site: http://www.hellomynameise.com/

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A quick note about paying for this app: I'm always happy to pay for a great app. Having said that, with this kind of app, it is only valuable as long as there's an incredibly high volume of installed users, almost (and ideally) if it becomes 'the standard' for real-world contact sharing via the iPhone.

Hopefully you guys could seed this kind of app for free and look for a minimum number of downloads (on a per territory basis) before upping the cost (per territory). Or, as I've read in other threads as may be your plan, adding further functionality to a paid version. Both of which I'm in to.

I suppose if this is the kind of functionality that you would put in a paid version of Friend Book (and the standard version remains free), I would be up for upgrading as long as both versions are backward/forward compatible i.e. Paid version has social network functionality, free version has only basic handshake for swapping phone number; if a user with the paid version sends all their social network details to a user with the free version, the user with the free version can still action all the social network details they have received.

(And keep up the good work by the way, I'm digging Twinkle and looking forward to installing the update and moving back to it from Twitterific)