One of the coolest apps for Facebook is the Friend Wheel (mine is below). Basically it shows the inter-relationships between all of your Facebook contacts. A “good” wheel has lots of data points (people) and chords (relationships).
The problem is, once you get too many contacts (those connected with me will notice that I was recently pandering for my 200th friend — it turns out it was my longtime collaborator Alan Majer, one of the best brains in the world with respect to technology trends), the font gets too small for you to read the individual names, or the bleed over each other. For example, one of my distinguished former colleagues currently has 634 friends.
Which brings us to sponge-worthiness. You may remember the Seinfeld episode where Elaine finds out that her birth control device has been discontinued and that she had to become more choosy with her paramours. For regular readers of the Wikinomics blog, you’ll recognize that this isn’t the first time I’ve referenced Elaine. In order to keep my friend wheel intact (and readable), I either have to stop adding people, cut people that I’ve already befriended, or annoy people enough to that they will drop me.
What do you think, Wikinomics audience? Do I get choosier? Cull the herd? Stop being wheel-vain? I welcome your comments.
The problem is the wheel, not how many friends you have. Use a simple table and forget the graphical representation. That’s what Web 2.0 means: focus on the use, not in the apperance.
Problem with having lots of friends in facebook is not just this wheel, but never ending news feeds, invitations to facebook apps etc.
Shawnna Condy ditched me too, I had to add her again.
My name is clearly visible.
You are right, Imran.
You can lower the settings though so that you receive alerts at the pace you want.
As for adding apps, I pretty much ignore all of them.
Mike,
Thanks for the mention in your blog and for the flattering picture (clearly my security settings need to be adjusted).
To address your concern however, I humbly agree with GoodtobeGReat; the problem is the wheel. You see, while it’s a novel idea to be able to see the interrelationships within your network, the design of the wheel limits the very novelty that it suggests to have. At the end of the day (probably at the start and middle too) Facebook is a social networking site, where one can develop and keep track of their networks. As such, as you develop your network outside of your immediate circle of friends it becomes cool too see who and how everyone knows each other. I’m not interested in knowing how my brother knows my sister. What I am interested in however, is how my roommate knows my new girlfriend or better yet, how my roommate knows my sister. I think you see the point I’m getting at. Facebook is fun because it not only allows you to keep in touch with your friends, but opens a whole new world of opportunity for creeping, poking and interacting that would never have been possible before. With the design limitations that you mentioned, the Friend Wheel fails to embrace this Facebook truth. I say you dump the wheel and start catching up to 634. It may seem like a daunting task, but with the right Facebook attitude you’ll be creeping, poking and getting blocked by people you’ve never even heard of.
All the best,
Stan
Clearing the clutter is the next challenge for the next developments, and could be done dynamically using levels of participation. It is like the current need for contact labels, so we can easily classify and find our target friends.
I see my name. I also see no strings touching me. Culling me will only depress me further.
[...] network, nice though the abattoir is I’m a serious LinkedIn user and a casual fan of the Facebook, but that’s it…I’m not hiring anymore. Fact is, the two of them do the job. [...]
[...] of riches” program is the friend wheel. I’ve blogged before about how too many friends makes the wheel unreadable. They’ve addressed this by allowing customization. The wheel above only includes friends with [...]