Members frequently ask for is insight into what other members are doing, including the ability to view each other’s portfolios. We’ve resisted this, becasue we want to see how each member does on their own.

But in our Facebook application we have published trading information, specifically when a member makes a buy and sell. This experiment is working well, so we’ve decided to bring it to UpDown.com.

Starting tomorrow, you’ll be able to see when a friend has:

• Made a buy, including the amount
• Made a sell, including the company name and amount
• Added another friend
• Joined a contest, group or network

We’re really excited about this new feature and think it will make the site more interesting for groups of friends.

We’re about to make some improvements that we wanted you to know about.

Over the past few months we’ve added to and enhanced quite a few social features on the site, including groups, contests, networks, friends, and we’re about to make improvements to our member profiles.

These features all make the site more fun, and enable better collaboration and competition. But they work better when members can find each other.

As part of these changes, we’ve decided to require and show real names. We’re also going to show real names across the site by default. You’ll be able to turn this off with the profile settings.