[wp-hackers] Following authors...

[Muhammad Ali]

Any suggestions on how I could create a plugin or integrate a function in
place of the loop to follow users, much like is done in micro-blogging
sites.

Any suggestions on the functions that will be used etc.

Any suggestions would be appreciated and code examples would be awesome! :)

Here is a suggestion from Stack Overflow: Thoughts?

>  Just a plugin concept …
>
>    1.
>
>    Add a form with a button to each user profile, post or wherever you
>    want it named *Follow* or*Unfollow*. Show the button only if
>    is_user_logged_in()<http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/is_user_logged_in>.
>    You may use a widget for the form.
>    2.
>
>    On form submit update a user meta<http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/update_user_meta>
>     named follows for the user who clicked the button and another one
>    named followers for … well … the user who just got a new follower. Use
>    the user IDs as a serialized array (yes, ugly, I know).
>    3.
>
>    Create a dashboard widget or a whole page where the access is
>    restricted to users who can follow or be followed. Query for the user
>    meta <http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/get_user_meta>
>    follows to get a list of all authors the current user has subscribed
>    to and then query for the posts from these users<http://codex.wordpress.org/Class_Reference/WP_Query#Author_Parameters>
>    .
>    4.
>>
>>    Get the user meta followers and print a nice list of her followers.
>
>
>

E.g.
https://wordpress.org/support/topic/does-it-exist-follow-authors-in-separate-stream