One of the interesting problems with Facebook is the way it filters your friends feed.

[randomness]

We had a conversation last night during which one of my friends (PQ) complained that no one in Boston seemed to have seen her post that she was flying in from the Netherlands. Another friend in the conversation (BB) reported that only about a tenth of PQ's posts were showing up on her feed, and that when BB went back to look at PQ's personal page she saw all these posts that she had never seen before.

Later, it occurred to me that this might be a function of the number of people one has friended on Facebook. I have all of 34 friends on the Facebook account corresponding to my name here, and I fairly reliably see most of what they post, although there are occasional dropped posts. It does help when I use the "most recent" option, but I still don't know if that gets them all.

Facebook's algorithm for showing posts on one's feed is obscure but it does seem to try to reduce the number of posts one gets to what they consider a manageable number. Evidently they have decided that simply forwarding all the posts one's friends have written is overwhelming for people with many friends. Overwhelming the advertisements, no doubt.

In any case, if I needed any more reasons to stick with LJ/dw as my primary platform, this is yet another.

Comments

[nathanjw]

It's an interesting problem, as annoying as the implementation currently is, but I don't think they're wrong to be heading in this direction. Here's why: Even assuming that right now I can keep up with all of the posts from all of my friends, at some point that will not be true - too much will be posted, or I'll have less time to read, or I'll go away for a while. What's the right thing to show me, in that case?

1. The full feed, but only the most recent things as far back as I have patience to read (what LJ, or any other naive new-posts-at-the-top system does). This causes me to see certain consecutive stretches of posts but miss some other consecutive stretches of posts, somewhat randomly chosen as it's based on exactly what moments I happen to look at things, and not based on the posts themselves.

2. The full feed, from when I last read, as far forward as I have patience to read (what most email clients do). I fall further and further behind, most likely, and eventually declare "bankruptcy" and miss some large consecutive set of posts and start over.

3. "The important stuff". This could be a lot better than 1 or 2, because there are lots of signals present that could tell the system what's important to me - people commenting a lot on a post, friends of mine in particular commenting on a post, posts by people I've interacted with more in the past, and so on. I think that's what Facebook is currently approximating, and I expect it to get better. The knob that I want here is one to expand the quantity of posts that it's willing to show me - basically, the quality/importance threshold - and perhaps a way to make it clear where (in the timeline?) there are buried posts that are currently below the threshold, in case I do have the time to dig into them.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

What's the right thing to show me, in that case?

In general, the thing I want my social network to do is to let me decide.

and perhaps a way to make it clear where (in the timeline?) there are buried posts that are currently below the threshold, in case I do have the time to dig into them.

This is key, at least for me. When something like that exists I can catch what I consider to be errors in the algorithm's behavior.

I would also prefer having the option of 2. If I declare "bankruptcy", that's my decision, not the algorithm's.

I think what I really want is the ability to tweak my feed in a very granular way, with the help of algorithms which are transparent and under my control. However, allowing users that level of control probably conflicts with some objectives Facebook has. To take one obvious example, many people would probably want to opt out of advertisements entirely.

On the other hand (just thinking aloud here) for the right price I would pay for access to transparent algorithms and control over my feed. So there's a possible revenue stream. I have a paid account on LJ, for example, even though the only use I make of it is the email forwarding and the polls. If Facebook charged me something on the order of what LJ charges me, and gives me control over what shows up in my feed, I might well pay them.

I don't know if that's a viable model for Facebook, though.

[nathanjw]

Knobs for users are hard to implement . I don't have to assume malign intent or conflicting objectives to understand why they don't exist. Ask instead: out of my 1, 2, or 3, what should they implement for the user - most of their users - who is never going to turn a knob?

(This all might be far too charitable, but I now live on their side of implementing stuff for lots of users, so I have sympathy).

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Sure. I can understand why one wouldn't build knobs for general users.

But do users who have paid for knobs use them? If you can get users to pay for some knobs, those might be worth adding.

I now live on their side of implementing stuff for lots of users, so I have sympathy

That's fair. I've lived on the side of implementing stuff for customers when they're willing to pay for them. Generally the cost is too high for most users to fund features, but not always.

The other thing that strikes me about Facebook is that it tends to create knobs for people posting, as opposed to ones for people reading. For example, Facebook includes a way for posters to boost visibility of their posts.

That last is what tends to make me think there may be conflicting objectives.