31–40 of 47 posts
Facebook really needs a 'friend clean up' tool ASAP. The problem of having irrelevant friends is huge.
Facebook has no interest in reducing the complexity/value of your social graph.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a nice sentiment, but sometimes I wonder what is the point as well. I've often thought of deleting facebook for similar reasons. Not necessarily because a flood of emails regarding people of whom I'm not invested in decided to jump on a birthday band wagon. But I think a piece of what he's saying, is why bother. It's just a reminder that the majority of people you've told yourself you're there for(facebook that…
Why does a nice sentiment have to have a point?
This is 2012. Whats the excuse?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why does a nice sentiment have to have a point?
Could probably rephrase this, as a nice sentiment can be very nice with no point at all. But the "happy birthday!" messages on facebook, imo, have lost their meaning and relevance a long time ago. There's no thought or effort that goes into this action. In the early stages of facebook, there was still a couple more steps that had to be taken to get that message to the old acquaintance. Thus, albeit small, a little mo…
Now, as a society, as well as on facebook, we're a step away from automating our wishing people happy birthdays.
The dystopia you imagine is already here in the form of Christmas Card lists.
*"It was my Birthday a couple of weeks ago. From my 527 friends, I received 52 birthday wishes on Facebook. That’s 10% of my friends — more activity in one day than I saw in an entire year prior. Who are these strangers posting on my wall? I haven’t spoken to some of them in 5 years. What a wonderful treat to hear from them on my birthday." This paragraph pretty much sums up why I deleted my Facebook account - either…
I wish Happy Birthday to people I haven't spoken to in 25 years (apologies for being old). I wish it to people I don't really know (members of a creative collective I belong to). I wish it to any of my friendsters that have birthdays on the day that I happen to visit FB. It's not so random as it sounds, either, I have fewer than 200 FB friendsters. Most people think it's nice to receive birthday wishes, and if you're…
Essentially it served to remind me that I hadn't been on the site, or had any email notifications, for quite some time before that. The reason I mentioned that the people wishing me happy birthday were people I didn't know particularly well was to make the point that, by deleting my account, I wasn't losing out on a method of communicating with good (or even faint, but still kinda) friends.
I'm not generally a fan of how ubiquitous FB seems to have become recently, but when everyone is on the same network and that network has some simple tools for doing socially useful things (making plans with people lots of people and carrying on idle chatter), that's handy.
Very similar to my thoughts. Plus, I have some other experiences to compare to, and FB doesn't come out very well in those comparisons. Some websites allow you meet new people and to get to know them better over the years. You'd think "social" networks should do that as well, but they aren't. In fact, Facebook sort of works in the opposite way. For the most part, it's a collection of people whom you used to know, but…
I don't see what you mean by "designed to discourage speaking with 'strangers'", it seems to me that the interest tags that Facebook has implemented and the stream of people it suggests for you to be "friends" with encourages exactly the opposite behaviour. There may be some lip service to online safety, but everything else points to pushing users to expand their networks. As unintuitive as it seems to me, a sizable…
I agree with OP in that Facebook that greatly taken away the ability to find people who are into a specific topic. I would like to find people in my area who like the film "El Mariachi". There is a Facebook page for it here: https://www.facebook.com/ElMariachiMovie I can see that 30,000+ people are fans of the film. Great! However, I can't see any of these people (let alone their proximity to me). The best I can do is maybe post something to the page, which will NOT appear by default, and may or may not get lost in the noise about other posts about actual Mariachis or maybe Mexican restaurants with the same name. The functionality related to one of my favorite books is even more bare (https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Man-with-the-Golden-Arm)!
This leads me to believe that (in the wake of privacy concerns) Facebook is no longer designed to help you meet strangers. You might find someone with similar interests, but it is likely to be a friend of a friend. This might be intentional. It's not necessarily bad or wrong, but I think it is important to call it out.
I can only imagine that if Facebook had pushed it hard enough, it would only have become even more commonplace. When you have 500M+ users, each of whom has a birthday once a year, and each of whom has numerous friends to wish him a happy birthday, $1 gifts are nothing to balk about.
The opportunity they had reminded me of the story behind how the diamond business itself created the profitable tradition of giving engagement rings and wedding rings.
*"It was my Birthday a couple of weeks ago. From my 527 friends, I received 52 birthday wishes on Facebook. That’s 10% of my friends — more activity in one day than I saw in an entire year prior. Who are these strangers posting on my wall? I haven’t spoken to some of them in 5 years. What a wonderful treat to hear from them on my birthday." This paragraph pretty much sums up why I deleted my Facebook account - either…
Very similar to my thoughts. Plus, I have some other experiences to compare to, and FB doesn't come out very well in those comparisons. Some websites allow you meet new people and to get to know them better over the years. You'd think "social" networks should do that as well, but they aren't. In fact, Facebook sort of works in the opposite way. For the most part, it's a collection of people whom you used to know, but…
I don't see what you mean by "designed to discourage speaking with 'strangers'", it seems to me that the interest tags that Facebook has implemented and the stream of people it suggests for you to be "friends" with encourages exactly the opposite behaviour. There may be some lip service to online safety, but everything else points to pushing users to expand their networks. As unintuitive as it seems to me, a sizable…
Sure, there are people who operate differently, but I really don't see any evidence that FB is designed for that kinds of use. If you "friend" people indiscriminately, your list will mean less and less with each person added.
Another part is covered by reply of dfxm12.