The core problem with facebook graph and social recommendation in general is that people’s friends are rarely the best source of recommendations for anything. This isn’t high school (or high school’s extension, college). I don’t hang out solely with people who all share the same interests and tastes I do. I have a lot of friends whose taste in food is awful so I don’t really need their restaurant recommendations. I have a lot of friends who have very different taste in music than I do so I don’t really care what they’re listening to.
I join social networks to socialize with my friends, not ask them what products and/or services to use. This all seems to me like the tail wagging the dog. Facebook is trying to create an opportunity for more monetization of friends’ activity without actually enhancing the social aspect of their social network.
No matter how cool graph is or how good the algorithms may become, it still won’t actually be useful.
Dear Mark,
This reader is right. Stop trying. The network you built is too big now you can’t engineer that social stuff, people make no sense remember? Just let people use FB for a fee and leave them alone with ads harassment and what not. 1 billion people, $15 a year bam, 15 billion a year that’s better than your current 7.
I know you try hard, tweaking algorithms, pushing me to “subscribe” and unveil my preferences but there’s nothing you can really do to enhance the social aspect of your social network because after being connected to someone, receiving updates videos and pictures, more socialization means moving my ass and actually see the person.
FB is valuable to me, I’d like to pay a few bucks and be left the fuck alone by corporations and greed. Come on, Mark.