I have a requirement to build a friend importer module for the next project I am working on. There is mention of this being a feature in future releases of BP here on the friends roadmap page on buddypress trac. If you use facebook, LinkedIn or Plaxo the make sure you are logged in and click the following links to see what the pages look like:

• http://www.linkedin.com/connections
• http://www.linkedin.com/inviteMany
• https://www.linkedin.com/secure/uploadContacts
• http://www.facebook.com/invite.php
• http://www.facebook.com/contacts/index.php
• http://pulse.plaxo.com/pulse/connections

I am going to now describe what I would like the “Recruit friends & family” or “Invite Your Friends” bp-component to do as best I can…. The objective is to grow your social network by add friends or colleagues, which means that there will need to be a page listing various ways to do so. The page should be linked via your top menu as well as sidebar widget. The “Recruit friends & family” or “Invite Your Friends” page should be structured as follows:

Email via system

• This is the most basic part of the page where a user can send a straight email invite
• Users should be able to add the following fields:
  • First Name
  • Last Name
  • Email details to a form
• There should be a edit/preview invitation text before sending invites

Import contacts from Web Email

• The next option should be available to “Check your Address Book” on MSN/Hotmail, Gmail or Yahoo. This option will connect to you online address book and “Import webmail contacts”
• A check should to see who uses this network or is a part of the community already, then send invites to those members
• The next step should be optional and that is for users to tick boxes next to contacts that are not on the network and they would like invites sent to.
• There should be a edit/preview invitation text before sending invites

Import contacts from Email Application

• Another form below the “Inport Contacts from Webmail” where a user can upload their address books from a mail client like Outlook, Apple Mail, Thunderbird, etc
• Clicking on “import address book” should bring up a wizard guiding you through the import process”.
• They then tick the contacts who they want to mail, write their message and press send when they’re done, which send their message to the people specified, in much the same way as above
• There should be a edit/preview invitation text before sending invites

Extra comments and considerations

• By adding recipients to your address book on the social network system users need to be made aware that their contacts will be stored on their profile, therefore the address book will follow you throughout the site. This should help users to be able to quickly forwards news and other information to your friends outside of the network enticing them to join
• Above this table, just above the headers, there should be “import address book”, “Add new contact(s)” and “select all” buttons
• When you click on “Add new contacts”, a form should open on top of the current page (I think you mentioned this kind of thing to me earlier today – it’s not a new page, it’s like a mini screen popping up on top of the page), with First Name, Last Name, Email Address, Address1, Address2, Suburb, City, Province and Postal Code  fields.

The reason why I would like this bp-component is to provide tools for party volunteers to spread the word and recruit friends. As we have seen with the Obama campaign, online support can make the difference between winning and loosing an election. With the right tools we can empower our volunteers and supporters to do more to for the party than was possible in the days before the Internet.

South Africa does not have something like this in place and I believe it will change the way political parties operate! This can of course be applied to just about any social network scenario.

Feedback would be great!