Scaled-down Facebook?

Former Facebook employee says that Facebook friend networks are just too big, and has invented "Path," which limits users to 50 friends at a time:

http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/innovation/05/25/path.dave.morin/index.html?hpt=C2

Will be interesting to see if "smaller is better" catches on. I can see there being a backlash against managing enormous social networks and longing to get back to the basics. It's kind of the path these things travel. Slate had a story the other day about how people are buying smaller houses - even people who could afford McMansions.

Some people "flip out," so I'm told, and cancel their Facebook account all together.

All in all, should be interesting to see where social networking goes from here, if it is actually at a crossroads of sorts.

 

As long as getting back to the basics of social networking doesn't involve MySpace, I'm all for it.

 

I don't think "basics" would mean "Single Ladies" blaring at you when you open the page.

 

I'm not on Facebook, so I dunno. What is the appeal of having hundreds of people on your friends list? Is it like having a Beamer in your driveway or a Cartier on your wrist?

 

I would think the obvious benefit would be having more and different things in your newsfeed.

 

Dumb.

Want no more than 50 friends on Facebook?

Don't have more than 50 friends on Facebook.

 

But, Mac, one would be likely to chat with or be interesting in the comings and goings of a small percentage of a monster list, right?

 

Theoretically, yes. And Facebook already does this for you. It has an algorythm that will give you the "Top News," which best I can tell is a mix of the most "popular" by activity recent status updates or the raw news feed. You can toggle between them on the main page.

I use the raw feed and, with a minimal amount of effort, block the folks whose updates are annoying or frequent or Farmville or whatever.

So, in theory, yes, probably 90 percent of a person's interactions come from 50-100 people. A scroll through your Top News would tell you who those people are.

 

For some of you, this will mean many fewer friends. For me, many, many more. [/comicbookguy]

 

Scaled Down Facebook. Isn't that twitter?

 

Scaled-down Facebook is fine for personal use, but not for business fan pages and all that other stuff. And I always see the same people in my news feed; it's generally the 30-50 people I care about, with the rest of my "friends" rarely making a dent.

 

The problem with Facebook is if you have 400 "friends" (and I put friends in quotes because you DON"T have 400 real friends) then you can't see everyone's information on your news feed unless you search for them individually. Even if you change your settings to include everyone's updated info and statuses, it all depends on timing and when you log on and see said info.

The bigger Facebook gets, the more idiotic it gets. I remember using it in 2006 when only college students and graduates were the primary users and it was simple -- and great. Now it's just a clusterfuck full of bitching, moaning, videos, etc. It's like a playpen for adults, sans the colorful balls in the pit.