Monday, May 4, 2009

Is a unique user experience worth it?

Recently, I've noticed a lot more tweaks on Facebook that have walked that careful line between creating a unique user experience and completely abuse access to user info.

Believe it or not, I let the targeted advertisements go. I even let it slide when friends are suggested to me based on "mutual friends." But now I'm a little concerned.

I logged on today to find that Facebook is now recommending friend lists for your friends based on information about your relationship with them. So basically, Facebook has analyzed the content of my profile and my friends' profiles to tell me who is probably a "work" friend and who is a "school" friend. This bothers me. Not only does this make me feel like a third party is doing the networking for me, but it's analyzing my info and making bad decisions. I don't know a single bit of criteria as to WHY they thought Sam Nitz belonged on my work list and not my school list. If they're going to mine through our interests, education and places of employment, can they at least give us some rationale before making a lousy guess that my 60 year old father is a "school friend"?

Oh and BTW, suggesting that I become a friend of "sarcasm" means you're close to jumping the shark!

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