I have (at most fourteen) judgmental friends!
I often feel that the online social network site Facebook.com is doing things without me paying attention. Lately, that feeling is because Facebook is judging me. Through email, no less!
I've been receiving "Facebook Social News for Andrew Schwartz". It sounds very official, but it's really just spam from one of the many add-ons. Here's the latest:
I was momentarily distracted by the possibility that somehow Facebook could empirically analyze my picture, my favorite movies, and my selected quote and derive all this information about me. And relative to my friends, no less! Surely the Navy needs this technology.
How it actually works is that people are presented with a question "who would I rather take shopping?" and then two pictures of friends. Based on the choice, one person gets a positive vote and the other gets a negative. With enough responses, I suppose this would get to be a somewhat reliable index of how your friends think of you in relation to their other friends.
Sure, there's some inherent weaknesses. For example, if I may be voted "most athletic" if someone's group of friends consists mostly of fat couch potatoes. But I'd be in a bad way for "most humorous" if someone's friends contained all the top comedians of our day.
Those individual differences would get smoothed over by a large number of "averaging" responses. Unfortunately, there haven't been a lot of responses. In total, I'm rated in 14 categories, and none of them has more than a single vote.
In eight categories, I received the YES, accompanied by my ranking amongst my friends: more generous (7th), more likely to do a favor (10th), better listener (10th), rather hang out with for a day (11th), rather date (11th), funnier (11th), more cuddly (12th), and more reliable (14th).
In six categories, I received the NO: would make a better father (16th), more likely to skip class (27th), more fashionable (28th), braver (30th), more attractive (30th), and more naturally talented (31st).
Assuming I'm being compared to all the results of my 64 friends, all of these seem to be positive results. Of course, they're basically one step up from meaningless, since it's only a single vote each time. Plus, I have no way of knowing if it's a single person who voted 14 times, or 14 individual people who voted once and then said, "this is stupid."
But just in case you want to ignore it for all the reasons I listed above, they give it a sense of time-urgency and real life movement. The bottom part of each week's social update gives a step-by-step on the weeks rank changes.
I've been receiving "Facebook Social News for Andrew Schwartz". It sounds very official, but it's really just spam from one of the many add-ons. Here's the latest:
Social News for February 7, 2008
Here is what your friends think about...
... your strengths:
#7 most generous
#10 most helpful
#10 best listener
... your weaknesses:
#30 most attractive
#31 most talented
Here is what your friends think about...
... your strengths:
#7 most generous
#10 most helpful
#10 best listener
... your weaknesses:
#30 most attractive
#31 most talented
I was momentarily distracted by the possibility that somehow Facebook could empirically analyze my picture, my favorite movies, and my selected quote and derive all this information about me. And relative to my friends, no less! Surely the Navy needs this technology.
How it actually works is that people are presented with a question "who would I rather take shopping?" and then two pictures of friends. Based on the choice, one person gets a positive vote and the other gets a negative. With enough responses, I suppose this would get to be a somewhat reliable index of how your friends think of you in relation to their other friends.
Sure, there's some inherent weaknesses. For example, if I may be voted "most athletic" if someone's group of friends consists mostly of fat couch potatoes. But I'd be in a bad way for "most humorous" if someone's friends contained all the top comedians of our day.
Those individual differences would get smoothed over by a large number of "averaging" responses. Unfortunately, there haven't been a lot of responses. In total, I'm rated in 14 categories, and none of them has more than a single vote.
In eight categories, I received the YES, accompanied by my ranking amongst my friends: more generous (7th), more likely to do a favor (10th), better listener (10th), rather hang out with for a day (11th), rather date (11th), funnier (11th), more cuddly (12th), and more reliable (14th).
In six categories, I received the NO: would make a better father (16th), more likely to skip class (27th), more fashionable (28th), braver (30th), more attractive (30th), and more naturally talented (31st).
Assuming I'm being compared to all the results of my 64 friends, all of these seem to be positive results. Of course, they're basically one step up from meaningless, since it's only a single vote each time. Plus, I have no way of knowing if it's a single person who voted 14 times, or 14 individual people who voted once and then said, "this is stupid."
But just in case you want to ignore it for all the reasons I listed above, they give it a sense of time-urgency and real life movement. The bottom part of each week's social update gives a step-by-step on the weeks rank changes.
Changes in your ranks:
1 place down, now #7 most generous
1 place down, now #10 best listener
7 places up, now #10 most helpful
1! place down, now #11 most cuddly
2 places down, now #11 most dateable
1 place down, now #7 most generous
1 place down, now #10 best listener
7 places up, now #10 most helpful
1! place down, now #11 most cuddly
2 places down, now #11 most dateable
Seven "helpful" places this week! I must have been really helpful!
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