Level Up Bnter: A simple feature tweak to increase virality

You must check out Bnter if you’re not familiar with the elegantly simple conversation sharing site (see my convo’s).  The site leverages the inherent narcissism and self-expression of conversations to drive its viral growth but there’s one small change that could significantly improve this.

When you post a new conversation, you’re prompted to select or enter the name of the people in the conversation.  It uses standard dynamic search to display the people you’re following on Bnter.  That’s the problem.  Why aren’t my Facebook and Twitter friends included in these results?  Yes, I can enter their name manually and hunt down a picture to attach to the post but that sucks.

After you post the conversation, you’re prompted to enter the email address of the person tagged in the convo for them to see.  Who actually knows their friends’ email address?  Why not offer users an easy way to post it to their friends’ Facebook wall?  Unlike email, this public activity may also appear on mutual friends’ Facebook feed, increasing its exposure.

These feature tweaks certainly aren’t incredibly novel.  Maybe the Bnter team has a good reason for its current design.