Facebooked!

Sometimes you have to do something idiotic to prove yourself right.  After having thoroughly trashed the idea of joining Facebook in a recent post, I let myself be convinced by a trusted friend to try it out after all: 

Facebook is becoming an important application platform and it's important to understand the dynamics behind this.

he said. And rightly so.  Compared to the fragmented world of independent Web 2.0 widgets and mashups, which don't really seem to be getting any critical mass of adoption, Facebook is a veritable hotbed of innovation with an actual, huge market of adopters and real volume of useage. 

OK, so I signed up.  Sure enough, I didn't pay much attention to the process of finding existing friends among my contacts and before I knew it, Facebook spammed everyone in my email address book!  How incredibly obnoxious!  I'm clearly not the only one, as described by Steve O'Hear on ZDNet.

It's bad enough that I'm annoying some real friends with these unsolicited invitations.  What's worse is that I am now getting friend acceptances from people who aren't friends, but who just happen to be in my address book.  What am I supposed to do with my plumber as "friend"?

So there you have it.  Now I'm your friend, I'm everyone's friend.  What an idiot.

P.S. Veteran facebookies among you: what is the etiquette for removing a friend who accepted your email spam but whom you don't really know and don't really want seeing your Facebook details?  Can you just kick them out? 

Comments

[ooo]

you are aware there is a 'skip this step' button on the page where facebooked spammed all your friends.

[kerry ritz]

of course you do know that are two parts to the facebook signup: one it looks for your existing friends who are already in facebook so you arent really spamming them--youre connecting with them. the other part of facebook automatically checks the boxes of all of your contacts who are not in facebook and then sends them a request IF YOU DONT ASK TO OPT-OUT--instead facebook should provide an opt-in rather than opt-out.

[Mohammed]

Max,

I think facebook has recognized the fragility of the situation when it comes to removing friends.

When you remove your "friend", he/she receives no notification they have been taken off your friend list and can no longer see your profile.

On the flipside, you could create what facebook deems a "limited profile" in which you choose what content others (including your dubious "friend" or the general public) can see compared to your full-profile.