Using Friend Feeds and Status Updates on SparkPeople!
How to Find and Use These Community Features
-- By SparkPeople Support
In March 2009, SparkPeople launched a highly requested feature called Friend Feed, which allows you to keep up with your mutual SparkFriends, and helps them to stay up-to-date with you more easily! Put simply, your Friend Feed shows all of the SparkPeople Community activities of your friends in one place.Your Friend Feed can contain the updates for the following activities:
- Weight Lost (when someone weighs in)
- Every 250 fitness minutes tracked
- Every 1,000 SparkPoints earned
- Joining a SparkTeam
- Adding a friend
- Making a blog post
- Commenting on a blog
- Adding new photos
- Sharing a recipe
- Rating a recipe
- Giving a SparkGoodie
- Receiving a SparkGoodie
- Commenting on an article
- Commenting on a SparkPage
- Status changes (a new feature with more info below)
When we talk about Friend Feeds, we're really talking about two things:
- Your Friend Feed page. This is a page that only YOU can see. It includes updates from all of your mutual friends in one place. Click here to see your Friend Feed now.
- Your Activity Feed. This is what your MUTUAL FRIENDS see about you. Your Activity Feed collects your most recent activities (according to your preferences) and displays them on your public SparkPage. Your Activity Feed is also "fed" into their Friend Feeds of your mutual friends, which means that when your mutual friends look at their Friend Feed, they'll see your updates along with updates from all of their other friends, too. Click here to see your Activity Feed.
We realize that you might not want to share all of the activities listed above with others, but keep in mind that all of these actions are already public to the Community. The Friend Feed simply puts it all in one place. By default, all of the activities above will show up in your Activity Feed (with the exception of weight lost, which is private by default). Note that you can edit these settings any time by clicking here. NEW: Based on your feedback and requests, we've added an option to the privacy settings page where you can choose to remove your Activity Feed from your SparkPage.
Only your mutual friends will be able to see these updates about you (and vice versa). A mutual friend is someone who has added you as a friend AND whom you have also added as a friend. You can click here to use our Mutual Friend Finder to find out which of your SparkFriends are "mutual" friends. Other members who aren't mutual friends will NOT see these updates about you. The one exception to this is Status changes (more info below). If you update your status, and choose to make it public, anyone who visits your SparkPage will see it.
To see your Friend Feed (updates from your mutual friends), click here. You can easily find this page in the future in one of three ways:
- Under the Community tab (Scroll over the "Community" tab at the top of the page and select "Friend Feed" from the dropdown menu.)
- On the Today on SparkPeople sidebar (Look for the grey "Today on SparkPeople" sidebar to the right of this article. At the bottom, you'll see a new section called "My Friend Feed," which shows five of the most recent updates from your friends and includes a link to "See All Updates," which will take you to your Friend Feed page.)
- From your Start page (Scroll over the "My Tools" tab at the top of the page and select "Start" to go to your Start page. At the bottom of the green "my Community" section (on the right side of that page), you'll see a red link that says "My Friend Feed".
One of the Friend Feed options is a "Current Status" feature. As a bonus, you can earn 1 SparkPoint per day for updating your status! If your preferences allow, your Status changes will also show up in the Feeds of your mutual friends and in the Activity Feed on your SparkPage (viewable by anyone who visits your Page).
We hope that you will update your status with actions related to your healthy lifestyle journey—foods you ate, workouts you completed, goals you met, or support that you need, but you can update your status with just about anything! You can change your current status as often as you'd like by one of two methods (you must be logged in for either of these to work):
- From your SparkPage (At the top of your SparkPage you'll see your Activity Feed and Current Status. Click the "Change Status" link, enter a message about what you're doing into the text box, and click "save" to instantly update your status on your SparkPage and your mutual friends' Feeds.) Remember that the Activity Feed you see on your SparkPage is only visible to you and your mutual friends, but Status changes you make are viewable to everyone.
- In the Today on SparkPeople sidebar (Look for the grey "Today on SparkPeople" sidebar to the right of this article. At the bottom, you'll see a new section called "My Friend Feed," which also shows "My Current Status." Click "change" next to your status, enter a message about what you're doing in the text box, and click "save" to instantly update your status on your SparkPage and your mutual friends' Feeds.)
