We’ve added one feature, share to Twitter, and a set of small interactions that add up to being able to give props to someone who’s just propped you.
One of our goals for Lift is to connect people around their interests so that they can support and motivate each other. We’re rolling out a series of small steps, including this one, that we think will add up to a much improved social experience.
Twitter share is easy to explain. In the new version, if you leave a note, you will see the option to share that note (and your check-in) to Twitter. We’re not posting anything automatically, just giving people a way to share out to more of their friends.
Now, every product developer’s fantasy is that the users will want to share everything they do with all of their friends and that our product will magically “go viral” picking up millions of users overnight. Yes, we have that fantasy.
But we also have experience and our experience says that this feature will be used occasionally, mostly as a benefit to a few users who are at an inflection point for one of their goals. Here are three ways you might use this feature:
1) To get social support from friends. When I make a diet change I like to announce it to my friends so that they’re forewarned that I might want to go somewhere healthy for dinner.
2) To get comments from friends. I like to tell people what books I’m reading in case they’ve also read them.
3) To brag. Hey, sometimes you have to.
Moving on to the improved prop experience.
The names of people who propped you are now tappable so that you can go straight to their profile. Also, profiles now have activity streams with people’s most recent check-ins.
That means you can get a prop, get to the person’s profile, see their recent activity, and give them a prop in return.
What we’ve learned from user feedback and our own experience is that people love propping. So much so that when we asked some of the most successful people on Lift what advice they had for new users, a number of them responded with: Prop!
I’ll end with some of their suggestions:
“For my first check-in, I got a lot of props and encouraging comments. This helped make the habit stick in my mind a lot more. Give out lots of props, it’s fun.”
“Have great friends that give props in Lift. 🙂 It’s weird, but this morning a good friend gave me props because yesterday I finally remembered to focus on a good posture while working in front of my laptop. So this morning I felt even more motivated to follow through and make it an automatic habit.”
“Connect with friends, or just other people following the same habit. Even just ‘propping’ random people can make you feel more connected to them and therefore to your habit. Every now and then, write a comment to someone, and look to see if someone has written a comment to you.”
“Giving props is very important – somehow it seems that acknowledging others little victories strengthens you in your resolve to carry on.”
Oh, wait, one more thing (these are the release notes that never end). Thanks to everyone who participated in the surveys we sent out about New Year’s resolutions. We’re excited to share the results with you before the ball drops. In the meantime, start thinking about your New Year’s resolutions.
