The Obvious? - Comments

François Nonnenmacher comments on A thought for the last day of the holidays

François Nonnenmacher — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 03:21:57 +0000

And men who think everything revolve around children are merely machines for reproduction. ;-)

Alex Muller comments on Nine things I don't like about Ping

Alex Muller — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 09:19:45 +0000

Thanks Euan, saved me the trouble of downloading the update! Like Ric, I'll be sticking with Last.fm too.

Ric comments on Nine things I don't like about Ping

Ric — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 08:06:21 +0000

A trifle underwhelming ... won't be shifting from last.fm :)

Euan comments on Facebook won't let me be Leo Laporte's friend

Euan — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 13:29:23 +0000

Joe - feel free to soapbox any time.

Euan comments on Facebook won't let me be Leo Laporte's friend

Euan — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 13:15:10 +0000

That was my concern John. They seem to tweak stuff and work it out later!

Euan comments on Facebook won't let me be Leo Laporte's friend

Euan — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 12:46:01 +0000

While grateful to everyone advising me not to take this personally my point in writing this post wasn't that this situation, as far as I know, had anything to do with connection between Leo and I but rather another example of quirky behaviour by Facebook.

Euan comments on Facebook won't let me be Leo Laporte's friend

Euan — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 12:41:55 +0000

But there is a world of difference between me deciding and Facebook deciding Tim, especially when even by their own data driven criteria Leo and I are likely to connect given shared friends, networks and previous Friendship on his old account.

Dennis McDonald comments on Facebook won't let me be Leo Laporte's friend

Dennis McDonald — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 12:38:11 +0000

Don't take it personally. That is not intended as a sarcastic remark. Facebook's algorithms for what is and is not acceptable "friending" behavior are undoubtedly incredibly simplistic and primitive compared with human real-world decisions concerning relationships and communication. Undoubtedly, though, celebrities such as Leo are treated differently from the rest of us so I would not be surprised if relationship requests between people at different levels of prominence would be treated differently. 'Twas ever thus; I wouldn't expect to get face to face meeting with the President if I rang the front door of the White House, either.

TIm comments on Facebook won't let me be Leo Laporte's friend

TIm — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 12:19:08 +0000

Hi Euan, this is similar to the dialogue we had the other day re LinkedIn. (this is an observation E not a criticism!) Rather than a computer decide to decline a link you quite rightly declined to connect across a 3rd degree divide on LinkedIn as you didn't really want to open up a dialogue with someone you were "connected" to, but hardly knew on the LinkedIn system.

You as a conscious human being intervened in the relationship process. We must remember however The Facebook automata although spooky is also driven by humans but at the software interface. It's ever so subtle all this interaction on social media - a real mystery of meeting!!

John Hagel comments on Facebook won't let me be Leo Laporte's friend

John Hagel — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 11:32:40 +0000

This seems to be an emerging epidemic on Facebook - i n my case, I only get the message when I friend women - but apparently I can still friend men.

It appears to be part of a broader effort by Facebook to limit the social graph to people you already know which fundamentally destroys what until now had been a core strength of Facebook - as a platform for serendipitous encounters with people you did not already know. I wonder if they understand what they are doing.