TheMadScientist - 8:22 pm on Mar 2, 2010 (gmt 0)

You could even go a step further and make 3 (or more) options either through 'submit' type buttons or radio, check-box, or other entry method and allow users to decide whom the news is published to. Also, you could or could not use a pre-populated list(s) set and managed by the user allowing them to decide which news to publish to which people.

Examples:
'News' 'Not-News' 'News to Specific People'
'Link' 'Don't Link' 'Link for Specific People'

Check Boxes Where a Default May or May Not Be User Controllable:
'News' 'Link' 'Specific People'

The default for publishing unless overridden by a user could be:
'Not-News' 'Don't Link' So, unless a box is checked by a user, either in their control setting or at the time of submission, the post would be considered not-news and un-linked, but if the user chooses to make it news and the user attaches a link or adds a link, then they would be adding it not the system.

Again, my opinion only, so make sure you find out for yourself what you can and cannot do legally prior to use, but these ideas are free to use if you can legally, so have fun and don't just copy FaceBook, do something different...

* Some of these ideas are probably questionable, and IMO the best is to not attach a link directly to the activity, but rather link to the page or section of a page containing 'activities' a user has participated in so you are not providing a direct link to participate in the same activity, but rather a link to a page or section of a page where another user can view one or more of the activities the user the 'news' is related to has participated in... AFAIK to infringe you must copy a claim completely, so a bit of creativity in how you do things seems to be useful.