Claude Ritter

Learning from StackOverflow.com

Posted by claude - 30/04/09 at 11:04:38 am

Mark Pincus’ lessons from Tribe – fail fast

Posted by claude - 29/04/09 at 04:04:14 pm

Facebook Highlights: Algorithm developed by a 6 year old?

Posted by claude - 21/04/09 at 12:04:04 pm

I normally don’t join the “I want the old Facebook back” crowd but the latest redesign is really a bit hard to digest. The one thing that annoys me most, is the “Highlights” box. I’ve been observing the contents of this box for a while and I think it’s save to say that a good 75% of all items are nowhere near something I’d call a highlight.

So let’s looks at the highlights presented to me when I was logging in to Facebook this morning.

Awesome, thanks for telling me! First of all, Coco lives in Hamburg, which is about 10′000km West of my location. Second, I’ve never had any contact with here, never send messages, wall posts, nothing. And the most important thing, Facebook knows that I am in a relationship.

Really? Who? No contact over Facebook, ever.

All right, that might be interesting if this same album wouldn’t have been around for like a month already and constantly re-posted by the owner. Been there, done that, thanks.

Interesting group. I joined it, now stop showing me that damn thing.

Next item, the group owner posting a note for the group I’ve already joined. 7 people like it, aha.

Classical music. Not really my taste, and Facebook knows that.

A note withe _one_ photo. Never had any interaction with the poster (apart from adding him as a friend), none of my other friends commented on this etc.

And last but not least, a tagged photo of my girlfriend. Now that’s a highlight, there’s even a comment for this photo. Oh wait, this is MY own comment. Never mind.

I generally enjoy using Facebook, it’s free and I think they provide a lot of value. However, the latest changes appear to be a somewhat rushed reaction to the whole Twittermania and/or some Zuckerberg ego trip. The Highlights algorithm needs some serious work, otherwise it’s just a giant waste of screen estate or ad space.

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