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May 26, 2008
Sorry Facebook, Jeff Pulver DOES NOT Have Too Many Friends
During the past year as I became consumed by Facebook, Facebook has become my portal for business communication. An increasing number of my business conversations have been taking place inside of Facebook. A cornerstone of this strategy has been my ability to continue to add new contacts as they join the Facebook community.
On March 14, 2008 my strategy of using Facebook for business became challenged when I first reached the 5,000 friends limit. And while I thought it was cool to be at 5,000 friends, that feeling lasted only a few minutes when someone told me they tried to add me as a friend and they got a message that in effect “Jeff has too many friends.” And I had to ask, how could anyone ever have too many friends? (I recently spoke to Steven Levy about this in his Newsweek column: How Many Friends Is Too Many?)
Since joining Facebook, my “friends list” has expanded to include many different people from an assortment of industries from across the world. Examples would include: the community of people I have been friendly with since becoming active on the Internet, readers of this blog, friends from the VoIP industry, friends from the Israeli Hi-Tech Industry, Public Policy/Regulatory friends, friends from the emerging world of Internet TV, Social Media contacts (including “friends” from twitter), friends of friends who have attended my breakfasts in 2008 as well as some relatives and some of my actual friends from real-life. In some cases I’ve become more friendly with people in real-life after connecting with them on Facebook.
Since first reaching the limit, when I had the time, I spent time reviewing my friends list and removed several hundred people so I could make room for new contacts. And while it might be easy for some people to remove “friends”, it takes me minutes (not seconds) to decide who to remove. My de-friending process is unscientific, time consuming and uncomfortable. Especially when someone who was de-friended notices and immediately asks to be my friend again with the message “what happened? we used to be friends.”
So instead of waiting for Facebook to raise the limit on the number of friends I can have, I have taken the proactive step of creating a second Jeff Pulver profile on Facebook. When Facebook eventually does raise the limit for the number of friends that I can have, I will look to combine my friends lists.
Until then, New Friends are now invited to “friend me” over at: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1274672921.
Tags: Facebook, Social Media, Jeff Pulver
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Posted by jeff on May 26, 2008 11:15 AM | Permalink
Additional resources: Watch PrimeTime TV Shows | Watch the Jeff Pulver Show | Jeff's Qik Videos
Comments
I can't believe they haven't solved this yet. How disappointing, and how frustrating it must be for you. I don't suppose there are any apps out there which make managing multiple facebook accounts nay easier?
Posted by: Shay at May 26, 2008 07:46 PM
It will be interested to see how many people will be friends with both accounts when the limit is lifted...
Posted by: Eliram at May 26, 2008 06:35 PM
It will be interested to see how many people will be friends with both accounts when the limit is lifted...
Posted by: Eliram at May 26, 2008 06:14 PM
Yeah, this is tough. First, we met briefly at Podcamp Boston on '07 and a little at that VON, but I'm sure you don't know me from Adam. However, I have an interest in following you and seeing what you are up to, so while we are not technically friends, I still like to see your updates in the Facebook timeline. So for that reason, I'm glad I wasn't de-friended :) Second, I can only imagine the headache this is for you because, do you post everything twice so everyone can see it? Honestly, from my perspective of having several hundred friends, 5000 is a nice problem to have, but I can still see the headache.
Posted by: Jeremy Vaught at May 26, 2008 01:35 PM
Seems like this is an opportunity for another social network to offer a "no-cap" friend limit to attract Facebook whales like Jeff.
Posted by: Mark Smithivas at May 26, 2008 12:21 PM