Our friend Sean Moffitt is dealing with an unusual problem. It seems that he is hovering around 5,000 friends on Facebook. It turns out that 5,000 is the maximum, so in order to add new people, either he needs to drop existing friends or wait until he gets dropped by someone. This, by the way isn’t the first time that Sean’s eagerness to be social on Facebook has run him into trouble with Zuckerberg’s crew. See this brilliant post where he describes how his account was suspended because of  apparent dubious overuse.

Sean’s current situation may lead to some awkward conversations. Let’s say that you are one of his friends that gets deleted. How would you like to hear “you know I loves ya babe….but it’s just not working out. Maybe if I was allowed 5,005 friends we could still hang out…but rules is rules”? Maybe there is market for T-shirts that say “I’m amongst Sean Moffitt’s 5000 closest friends….check this space for updates.”

I’m facing a similar situation with my LinkedIn account. I’m nearing 500 contacts — the point at which the platform stops counting. Beyond that, it is just listed as 500+. Given that some people try to maximize their contacts for no real reason other than vanity (see here for the list of most ranked people), it could be argued that 499 is more powerful than 501 because some discretion is displayed.

 So, if you are interested in joining my netword network…ask me soon. I’m about to get pickier. (Nolin, you are always welcome).