I had a conversation once with mk where I proposed something like the following: A sort of indicator (doesn't matter what, it could be their name changing colors in a heat-map, a little climbing bar graph, a number on a scale, etc) that goes up slightly when you reply to someone. It would either be their name or be near it. That's all. Over time it would go back down at some point. Basically it just sort of let's you know if you've chosen to interact with this person before, and to what degree slightly...sort of like "Hey, I've met you before" I thought it would be interesting in that it might alter the dynamic a bit. Give you a slight pause before you either ignore them and move on or engage with them. I sort of like doing the "hard work" of remembering who I've interacted with because if you build a connection this way it is more solid, but this idea intrigued me.I don't have a brilliant memory, so once in a while I forget who I'm talking to. Currently there's a counter that tells you how many posts someone shared of you. But I think we can do more with this.
Snapchat does this. It keeps track of how often you snap people and how often they snap you, but it also maintains a time metric of some sort. So when I open my snapchat, it shows me the 3 people I snap the most frequently at the top - but if for instance I haven't snapped one of them in the past week, even if I've snapped them 7 times a day for the month before that, that person will fall out of my top 3. Then there is also a list of "recent snapchats" where it keeps about 5 people who I have sent snapchats to recently. This is a lot more dynamic than my "top 3" list. I don't think we could do it in list format here but I would really enjoy that. It could be like bars, like when you are listening to music and the bars go up. I like this idea but I don't know as it is necessary. I agree wtih you about the building a connection - as I'll put it - the "old fashioned" way. Where you had to learn people's names and identities and personalities over a series of conversation, and yeah sometimes you forget stuff because it's human nature, but then it comes back up again and you remember or re-learn it.