The latest step in our continuing quest to develop the most unique Android community is finally ready for public consumption. Over the weekend we rolled out our refreshed profile pages for all And Me Accounts. If you want to see yours, just log in. If you’d like to see a sample, check out my profile or Taylor’s.
If you want the short changelist, it goes like this: user activity stream, mobile profiles, big updates to follow. If you’d like the complete details, join me below for a rundown of all that’s going on in the world of And Me Accounts.
Activity streams for all users
A few weeks ago when you visited a user’s profile, you’d get the ten most recent comments. And that was all. And it was even weirder when you visited an author’s page, where’d you get a full post list on top of the comments.
In our new build, everything a user does on the site has been digested into a single, easy to follow stream. Comments, articles, and threads all show up in a single timeline, pageable and filterable (browse 3 pages back viewing just comments, for instance). Astute readers among the crowd probably just noticed that ‘threads’ is new to this list, but we’ll have more about that later in this post.
We think these streams will give a much greater insight into who a user is and what sort of things they’ve been doing around the site to earn the influence their rank reflects. And they are just cool. While building them I lost myself many times just clicking around deep inside a user archive.
Full mobile support
One thing that had been missing since we rolled our Account pages back in October was proper mobile support. The pages existed, but in a lame, barebones state. With this update we’ve corrected that injustice with a full-on mobile rebuild.
The new mobile profile pages have all the same info as their big brother desktop versions, including activity filtering and all your profile info.
What’s next?
As much as I like this update as it stands now, it’s really just a building block towards some other big plans we’ve got for your And Me Account. Pretty soon users will be able to create their own content and track app installs on Android and Me.
As mentioned above, we’re soon going to be launching Threads for certain And Me Accounts. Threads will be different from a normal forum in a couple of ways. Only users with a high enough rank will be able to start a new thread and doing so will actually charge points. While anyone can still join the discussion by posting a comment, we only want trusted members of the Android community actually starting discussions here.
It’s not just going to zap your points, though, as thread authors will earn points for each comment his or her thread receives. On top of that, we’ll have the ability to convert a thread into a full-blooded article on the front page, giving you a shot at becoming a citizen-turned-blogger.
Also in the coming weeks we’ll be launching a partnership with AppAware, our favorite social app tracking service. Once you’ve got AppAware installed, you’ll be able to link your accounts and display a list of your installed applications right here on your And Me Account page. If you don’t already have AppAware installed on your devices, now might be a good time to check it out:
AppAware Android Marketplace
Free42matters AG - Best Recommended Apps and Games
PLAY
QR
Today’s updates and these future plans are still only a portion of what we’ve got planned for And Me Accounts. I’d love to just spill the beans right now but I think we’ve covered enough for one day. If you’re interested in these sort of things, you might want to check out our new changelist, which is pretty stark at the moment but should be rather tasty as time passes.
As always, before I sign off, I want to say thanks to you, the loyal reader. You guys repeatedly make building all these tools totally worth it. We hope you enjoy the new updates and can’t wait to show you what else we have planned!
