Having just been invited to the "Top Friends" application [Facebook login req'd] I started thinking that it's deja vu all over again. Facebook is (or was?) a collection of mostly people I know in one way or another (weak ties in the social network lingo). Because most of the links are weak, using the word "friend" to describe a link between me and others is a bit problematic. But I'm all right with that. (Aside: Let's find a word, other than "friend", that stands for "someone I know".)
But now there's a "Top Friends" application so one can show 32 people who are ... well, I don't know... "top", "better", "closer", .... It's a bit like the T-Mobile "Fave 5", but that application is useful -- quick one-button calling. The Facebook app just seems explicitly exclusionary. I don't need a "Top Friends" application. Whenever I look at my list of Facebook friends I know the nuances of each relationship.
The trouble with computer-based relationship descriptions is that programs cannot embody tacit knowledge; everything needs to be explicit. But I'm not a program; I'm a human and I'm OK with ambiguity. Why can't we just leave it at that?
Technorati Tags: community_indicators, culture, experience, Group+Dynamics, Facebook, social+software
