At present, the default search on all profiles only uses an index of profile names (in the Ningja skin at least). If we do not already know a person, for example, we cannot discover them through a shared interest, or other quality.
Users, i.e. account holders, are likely to be real-life people or companies, while the profiles they create for various purposes in a Jamroom network are also of interest, though perhaps more specialised n their purpose.
Assuming that users have been able to publish a primary user profile with a searchable set of description fields, and assuming that each other profile owned by that user has its own set of description fields, then it should be possible to design drag and drop tools to implement an advanced search system dedicated to searching for other users and all their profiles in a network.
This could become a popular, social activity on the network. People-watching is a large part of what people like to do in many social situations. The more easily we can explore and learn about other people in a network, the more effectively we can learn to select profiles that we want to follow. Otherwise, the tendency will be to make selections from among just the most visible, recently-joined users and their profiles at the top of a page of profile photos.
It is more fun to be able to search specifically on something like location, or occupation, or interests, and then find all users and/or profiles that match.
The first step will be setting up forms for users and profiles that are displayed publically. With the sign-up data added to establish a first profile, and with data added for other profiles attached to each user, an advanced search page would be a powerful tool for finding other people.
It might also be good to be able to toggle between a search on all profiles, or a search on just the user sign-up profiles (this latter could be designed to show what other profiles are attached to a particular user, regardless of whether or not they match a search term).
Making advanced-search pages very easy to implement, by non-coding administrators/site owners, would be helpful for most social networks.
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PJ Matthews, Kyoto
Migrated from Ning 2.0. Now at Jamroom 6 beta and using Jamroom Hosting for The Research Cooperative (researchcooperative.org)
updated by @researchcooperative: 05/06/15 10:05:04PM
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