I don't think Facebook logins are a good way to handle user registration for something like this, perhaps I'm in the minority but I don't even have a Facebook account anymore (on purpose).
I don't think it's a good idea to pull Facebook friends from their API for this purpose either, are you actually processing those or is it client side?
We are processing the connections so we can show you friends of friends on the site. The thought being that it's much easier to start chatting with someone if you know you have friends in common. If you do signup you can sort everyone on the site by how many mutual friends you have, which is pretty amazing.
Using Facebook also allows us to protect against spammers, recruiters, etc., and we can make filling out your profile easier (though we still have work to do there).
What alternative site would you want to be able to sign up with? Github? Twitter?
I'd like to chime in by saying I'm interested in using the service, but recently quit Facebook like a bad habit and have no intentions of ever going back.
By making registration as Facebook only, you may be excluding some of the best people.
CollabFinder is a network of geeks like you looking for collaborators. No recruiters. No MBAs.
It's the place to go when you're looking for someone to help you with your next big idea. Browse developers, designers, illustrators and writers by skill, interest, location and how many friends you have in common. Then chat with anyone with one click.
And if you're looking to do a new startup tag yourself with "Y Combinator" or "Summer Camp" or "TechStars" to get pitched by people like you. Want to see Python developers in San Francisco who want to do a Y Combinator company related to education? No problem.
Try it out now at CollabFinder.com and let us know what you think.
I love the idea of making it easier for people to find one another to collab on things. How will you keep out recruiters, though? Seems like they always end up on these things and start increasing the noise.
Stopping recruiters from messing with people on the site is one of the big reasons we use Facebook - we can block anyone who abuses the system easily, and potentially block the companies using those recruiters. If we make the stakes high for companies abusing people through reckless recruiters hopefully we can change how companies think twice about hiring them. We also built in some simple triggers to make reporting abuse super easy, and we monitor how people are using the system closely. Hopefully in the future we can watch for suspicious behavior patterns based on what we learn.
The join forms on this site are abysmal. I hate to say it, but as a designer/developer, I couldn't even get my profile on the site. You gotta fix this if you want to get enough users.
Thanks for trying it out - can you tell me what issues you came across in the signup form? We're working on making it easier, but wanted to get the site out there and get some feedback.
Tried to get in touch with some people on the site but it says "Join CollabFinder by creating your public profile" every time I try to "add to my profile"
Thanks for trying out the site - can you be a bit more specific about what happens when you try to sign up? Did you get a facebook dialog popup? Would love to help you get it sorted out - just launched and we probably have a few bugs lurking that we're not aware of. Also, refreshing the page might do the trick...
I reset my browser cache/cookies and that reset the Oauth token but once I login with Facebook it redirects me back to the "add to my profile" page where I choose that I'm a developer and it either kicks me to the same page as above or a page with a few bullets on it that appears like an unfinished/unstyled page.
I would like to see design samples in the same way that you show code samples. And the "see who you both know" functionality might work better with linkedin than facebook. What would be really nice is if you could tap into meetup.com so you could see the backgrounds of people you're about to be at an event with. Other than that I love the idea and your execution of it.
I don't think it's a good idea to pull Facebook friends from their API for this purpose either, are you actually processing those or is it client side?