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August 02, 2008

Becoming and Staying Facebook Friends with Jeff Pulver

Ever since reaching 5,000 friends on Facebook on March 14th, 2008, I’ve been troubled by the issue of the 5,000 friend limit on Facebook. Life on Facebook would be simpler if there was no limit on the number of friends / relationships I could maintain in the Facebook name space.

Despite the fact that Mark Zuckerberg told me back in November, 2007 that “5,000 was just a number”, it is the number which limits my ability to use Facebook as my default communications network. The only work around that Facebook offered me was to turn my personal profile into a Fan Page. And despite that some of my other Facebook “friends” decided to turn their personal profiles into Fan pages, I felt that a fan page lost some of the personal elements that a personal profile offers. As such, I refuse to turn my profile into a fan page. I also don’t like he fact that Facebook automatically made me a “fan” of my friends whose profiles became a Fan page.

(For about a month I tried maintaining a second Facebook Profile with the same name. In the end I removed the second profile because it was difficult for me to give the same energy and effort to both my profiles.)

So because Facebook refuses to address increasing the limit of my friends from 5,000 to some other non-multiple of 16, I am stuck taking a hard look at who to remove and who to add to my Facebook friends list each month. At the moment I am dealing with a friend waiting list of 740 people.

And while not all friends are the same, the following is what I am thinking about when looking to remove Facebook Friends:

- Does this person ever share a comment on one of my notes, do they poke me (something I do to share presence with friends), or send me a message? Do they update their status messages? - Do they do things that engage me in a conversation? If each answer is a no, then I ask myself the following:

- Does the person have a picture posted in their profile? If not, they are candidates for immediate removal.
- Is this person active on Facebook? If they have “no recent activity” on their profile, they are a candidate for immediate removal.
- Is the person a “Friends Collector” - Does this person have a collection of people each of whom are people with large friends lists? If so, they are a candidate for immediate removal.

What would change this? Well I also ask myself:

- Is this a relative of mine? If so, no change.
- Have we met in real life? If so, most likely no change.
- Are we friends in real life? If so, no change.
- Do they have an interesting profile? Are they someone I would like to meet in the future? If so, most likely no change.

What do I think about when adding Facebook Friends:

- Do I know this person? If not, have they introduced themselves to me? If not, chances are I will ignore their request. While all new friends are welcome, I expect strangers to introduce themselves and let me know something about themselves. Imagine being at a cocktail party and trying to exchange business cards with someone without first talking to them. Unless you have something in common with the person, the business card exchange will not happen.

- Are we friends in real life? If so, I accept. No questions asked.
- Do we have too many friends in common? If so, i take a look and again if they appear to be collectors, I will ignore the request.

These days I make immediate room in my friends list when someone spams me or includes me on a chain message with 20 strangers.

Every once in a while I make the mistake and remove a friend by accident. In these cases, I look to immediately re-friend the person. This isn’t a perfect science and I hope that Facebook finds a way to extend the number of active people I can keep in my Facebook friends namespace in the future.


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Posted by jeff on August 2, 2008 10:55 AM | Permalink

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Comments

Posted by: Photoshop CS4 at June 24, 2009 04:01 AM

Posted by: injection molding at June 15, 2009 01:38 AM

I still find my contact list riddled with people I don't know or who have added me and then never made contact...or in fact given me any reason to 'stay friends with them' at all. There are plenty of people I want to connect with, so I don't need 'virtual strangers' infiltrating my news feeds etc. Anyway, I've just added you to FB, just to add to your woes hah!

Posted by: club penguin at May 19, 2009 01:03 AM

I use some of the same techniques for cleaning out my friends list on most social networks. This isn't a contest to see who can have the most friends, you want quality over quantity. I like to get to know who I am "friends" with online, they are not just another profile that I want to make my friends list count higher so I seem important.

Posted by: 1indienation at April 25, 2009 07:22 AM

I agree with Poppy Dinsey.
I think this is an important message for people that don't know you personally so thank you.

Posted by: Tal Peer Hacohen at December 28, 2008 08:32 PM

Well I sure wish I had read this post before sending you a friend request

Posted by: Hilarye at August 8, 2008 02:07 PM

Well, now I understand why I don't get your status updates anymore, which were quite enjoyable. I guess I should have been a better friend. I hope I can still attend your meetups from time to time.

Posted by: Rebecca Herson at August 5, 2008 04:51 PM

Hey Jeff-

That test is still a very, very low bar :)
Much lower than mine. I guess that's why I'm not hitting a number anywhere near yours!

Posted by: Ken Berger at August 2, 2008 07:00 PM

Jeff, I have 10% the number of friends you have, but I use a similar friend policy -- on Facebook and LinkedIn. (Twitter and Plurk don't allow you to send messages with friend requests.) If I don't recognize someone who adds me, and if they couldn't be troubled to write a single sentence telling me how/where they know me or why they want to connect, then I ignore them. We all have to find a way these networks work for us and keep the connections enjoyable.

Posted by: Connie Reece at August 2, 2008 02:21 PM

Jeff, i wonder what you think about FriendFeed rooms?
Perhaps a room cam be used as an active lounge for your waiting list and friends.
Imho rooms are good spots for getting to know more about people's interests before you friend/follow them.

Posted by: Majento at August 2, 2008 01:10 PM

I appreciate knowing why people leave. It takes just a few minutes to say this isn't working out - even if it is in a blog post like this. If you don't tell me why and it is because of something I did how will I learn. Perhaps we just need to connect elsewhere, right?

Of course, I have far fewer friends.

What I have discovered is that folks use it differently - some hate getting my status updates more them once a day as i flood their stream.

I love the updates - even get a backup RSS feed - especially now that we can comment.

Posted by: MCWFlint at August 2, 2008 01:06 PM

I like how you continually redefine and communicate your approach so it's clear to people how to connect with you.

I agree with Dan's observation about the way our approach changes as the network grows and have had similar issues as Jonathan.

I used to carefully screen each friend request on Facebook & if they didn't indicate how they knew me, I'd send them a standard response asking them why they wanted to connect. No response, no friend.

Now, I don't have the time to do that, so I just go by gut feeling and unfriend anyone who misbehaves.

I'm sure I'll have to revamp that as well if I get to the 5,000 friend mark & you sharing your experience helps in setting a direction. Thanx!

Posted by: Dave Webb at August 2, 2008 12:40 PM

Wow, that's really impressive that you put in the effort necessary to maintain a normal Facebook page with that many friends - I would have assumed anyone approaching the 5000 person limit would automatically go with the Fan Page option. Maybe I'll consider adding myself to your list of 740.

Posted by: Ariel Torres at August 2, 2008 12:06 PM

This is a very interesting post, although being inundated with friend requests is not a problem I have to deal with :-) I have 10% of the friends you have, but I still find my contact list riddled with people I don't know or who have added me and then never made contact...or in fact given me any reason to 'stay friends with them' at all. There are plenty of people I want to connect with, so I don't need 'virtual strangers' infiltrating my news feeds etc. Anyway, I've just added you to FB, just to add to your woes hah! But I do enjoy following you on Twitter and I'm hoping you'll be in Israel when I am in September for a potential tweetup. A long shot yes, but worth a try :-D

Posted by: Poppy Dinsey at August 2, 2008 12:05 PM

@Jonathan, if you have the time, challenge the people and ask them why they friended you. Those who don't reply, I would simply ignore.

Posted by: Jeff Pulver at August 2, 2008 12:02 PM

Well,

As I don't have 5,000 friends, I do have a different problem. I have around 150 pending friend requests from people I don't know. It's too much of a problem to say "no", but I don't know whether I should say "yes" as my friend list contains people I both know and like.

I usually try at least to ask the person where do I know them from, and most of the times I get no replies.

J.

Posted by: Jonathan at August 2, 2008 11:57 AM

It's interesting how our goals, strategies, and tactics change as our network of connections grows. The entire dynamic of how you do social networking changes when you have a large group versus a smaller group.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, and make it a great day!

Posted by: Daniel Johnson, Jr. at August 2, 2008 11:52 AM

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