This looks like a really useful tool to be brought to the Escargot community. Maybe even one of the most useful tools yet.
I have seen too many people getting excited for MSN coming back, going through the work of downloading and installing it, just to feel unmotivated afterwards due to the lack of contacts on their list. Since it’s still a growing community, the more contacts you have the better, as you have a larger pool of people in which you can find individuals that you actually like to talk to =D
If there is a possibility to somehow import all the contacts that have already been made available through Contacts sharing threads in MessengerGeek such as these (1, 2, 3), the list will get bigger pretty quick. Would there be a way to sort the list by Language, so people can easily add others that speak their idiom? Having a “sort by last logged in” would be really useful aswell.
I was the one who was developing something like this. One of the problems is that if you use a real email address it’s open to spam. In theory you could use anything to log in with but since I developed a php/sql/html5 online version my spam increased due to using a real email address.
This kind of service is open massively to abuse and I know why MSN took this service down now. My version is still online it’s just hidden out the way until I thought more about the process and how to achieve it. I removed all of my posts that involved this service.
Be careful with spam abuse. It’s open way bigger than you think. In the UK collecting email addresses under GDPR we wouldn’t be allowed to collect data like this I don’t think unless we advertise a disclaimer!
This is another reason I stopped the project!
Craftplace: I like your way miles better than mine! How do people go about adding to the list though? Do they need to email one email address so it can be manually added? I have just tested this app. It’s developing nicely.
They click on [ My profile ] and then check the “ Public” checkbox, after closing the window your contact will appear publicly on the list. Unchecking it would remove you again.
Get V2 out and you laughing then just need to get people to use it. That list could grow quite big. Imaging 1000 entries, how will the app manage a big contact list?
I like the idea of registration through this app! Then remove the main registration page online method. That means people can see the contacts straight away + sign up!
The method of an assigned ID would be great, that could be used in an API to pull the information into a webpage for searching too maybe?