[trigrhappy]

I've been using XBMC for many years now (and XBMP before that)... It's come a veeeery long way and the dev team is doing a truly awesome job. So with that said, please don't take this suggestion as criticism in any way shape or form. It's great, and I'll continue using it (quite excessively most likely) for many years to come. I haven't posted on an XBMC forum since way back when it was on xbox-scene, but I've been a lurker here since it was created.

Now that that's out of the way, I would like to see some very basic social features. A single page where you could enter your login/pass for social networks/email etc (possibly even for an XBMC specific profile). The add-ons that use the common social features (facebook/email) etc could simply call on the social module to login, instead of requiring the info be entered separately into each add-on. That would make XBMC setup quicker and easier, and make the add-ons that require these logins very simple to install/configure.

Now, that would be a useful feature in and of itself, but it would be nice if it went just a bit further as development progresses with it. For instance, the ability to create a list of XBMC specific "friends". Part of that would be the option to automatically share what you are doing. Think of it as a XBMC specific "status", that changes when you change movies/channels/songs etc. The people on your friends list could have an option to create a small notification when a friend's status changes. Or the ability, when viewing images, to send an image to a friend....

Once that is done, the possibility for add-ons to more significantly use these networking features would be nice. For instance, if XBMC devs eventually integrated basic console emulators into XBMC. One user could start a game with a friend, on the friend's XBMC a notification pops up asking if they would like to join their friend in a game. If he selects yes, XBMC starts the emulator with the networking arguments (app/rom; host/client; IP/port info etc) necessary for them to play with one another.

Now, the last part wouldn't necessarily even require emulator integration.....since the same could be done with an add-on. However, it would be necessary for the add-on to be able to use XBMC's underlying social features in order to make it work fluidly.

[King Dude]

I had this idea earlier. But nobody seemed to care for it when I said it.

[Montellese]

Which is probably because (apart from our community manager natethomas) none of the Team XBMC members use any of the social websites like facebook etc. I myself have both a facebook and a google+ account but if I go on those sites 10 times a year it has been a crazy year

Maybe that central "social module" could be implemented as a service addon? That would make it easier to update and adapt to other addons needs.

[Robotica]

Something has been done: See this topic.

[Ned Scott]

http://trakt.tv does this via its XBMC add-on. Not only through the trakt website, but you can post on facebook that you watched a movie once the movie finishes (it will prompt you at the end where you can say if you liked the movie or not), and various other cool things.

[Sranshaft]

There's also ShareSocial from Ruuk.

[trigrhappy]

Which is probably because (apart from our community manager natethomas) none of the Team XBMC members use any of the social websites like facebook etc. I myself have both a facebook and a google+ account but if I go on those sites 10 times a year it has been a crazy year

Maybe that central "social module" could be implemented as a service addon? That would make it easier to update and adapt to other addons needs.

I admire your lack of social networking. I can't fault you for that....I've been debating on deleting my facebook account anyway...just need to figure out a way to download all my pictures first.

Anyway, the primary goal of the feature was more a useful underlying XBMC specific network to add friends/etc. Admittedly, the inspiration for this was the thought of being able to engage in multiplayer games with other XBMC users on emulators and such (that darn integrated emulators/libretro topic got me all excited, lol).

With that said, it does look like this could be (and to an extent, has been) implemented as add-ons....which is great. I'd just like to see it built-in...but then again I'd like to see a lot of things that will never happen: A libertarian president, cold fusion, cars that run on water, and an XBMC gaming network are just at the top of my list, so I thought I'd suggest them one by one.

[un1versal]

As a xbmc user I would never want anything integrated so uncouth as social networking (really), this is a big no no for integrating anything like this, ever. Please dont do it!

As a addon sure, give people the option to install whatever social network they wish for whatever reason.

uNi

[artrafael]

+1

Why add bloatware to XBMC? It's not a core media center function. An add-on, if done right, can provide this ancillary function seamlessly to the users who desire it.

[DiMag]

I second this thread's scepticism toward social networking. IMHO there are other priorities for XBMC: a wikipedia add-on, an Internet browser. Perhaps it all collapses down to a single priority: an integrated Internet browser. Have it and you have the whole world into your plate --- including Facebook, Google+ and the like.