I'm writing an article on Facebook for Feliciter and have spent quite a bit of time on the site recently (er, even more than usual 
) so I thought I'd update my list of easy ways to improve Facebook.
1. Let users see the list of friend requests that have been sent but not accepted yet or denied. There's a whole strange etiquette, different for everyone, about whether you accept all “add” requests or how you turn someone down (it's an either/or proposition which seems harsh – and which is maybe why they don't provide this information. But my earlier idea about letting you set-up levels of contacts – close friend, acquaintance, idiot from high school who still won't stop bugging me) would allow you to add everyone then internally manage them within your profile.
2. This isn't an issue for me but I wonder if women can enter their maiden name? This would be really useful for finding those elementary and high school friends who have since changed their name (assuming they weren't married in high school of course!) It's not just a gender thing either – people of both sexes change their names because of adoption or for other reasons so this could help you track down that funny looking musical guy from grade six who now goes by “Prince” (not a good example – I know “Prince” really was Prince's real name.)
3. I mentioned this is the comments of my other post but will add it here formally. Facebook could expand the range of options for how you know people, how you met people. For example, I'm getting added by a lot of people from Saskatchewan because I started a group called “Saskatchewan Mafia”. But there's no way to signify that I know these people by common geography and nothing else. “Met Randomly” is partway there but it would be nice to record exactly how you met randomly. Online? At a bus stop? Through a Facebook group (and if so, which one.) At a conference? And so on.
4. Did I mention that I think the groups could be made a lot more useful by feeding their activity into the NewsFeeds? Well, I'm mentioning it again because I think that's a huge step to making the site better. Right now, groups tend to be little more than an extra way to define yourself – I'll join one for a band I like, one for the college I went to and to further show my whimsical sense of humour, one funny one about “If this group gets 10 000 members, Bob will fight a bear” or whatever.
5. The best way to make Facebook better? If you joined! Yes, you. Reading this. I know the number of people reading this blog versus the number of people who I've added in Facebook has a great discrepancy.
I'm calling the article I'm writing for Feliciter “E-mail for the 21st Century” and really, that's what social networking sites like Facebook are becoming. Put aside any stereotypes you have about social networking sites being full of scantily-clad, twenty year old college kids posting pictures of themselves drinking beer (that's MySpace, not Facebook) and just try it out. Signing up is free, you'll likely have an instant network of dozens of people if you're a UWO student/grad/prof, and then just treat it like e-mail – check it daily, every couple days, whatever, and there you go.
If it is a bit of ageism keeping you from signing up (“Oh, that's for kids. I'm too old for that.”), why not look up an article called: Why I Registered on Facebook., By: Lemeul, John, Chronicle of Higher Education, 00095982, 9/1/2006, Vol. 53, Issue 2
It's by a professor who did take the leap and join Facebook. Here's the opening lines of the article:
“Yeah, I did it. I registered for an account on Facebook.com.
I'm sure I protest too much when I say it went against my instincts and
better judgment to do so. Nothing's more embarrassing than a grown-up
trying to be one of the kids. But we can't let the students have all
the fun, now, can we?
A few of my graduate-school colleagues, now
working at other campuses where I rarely hear from them, had already
signed up and pestered me to get in the loop. They had misgivings about
it, too, they assured me, but quickly found that joining led to easy
networking and positive interactions with students.
And for what it's worth, I've had more contact with those far-flung former colleagues through Facebook these last few months than I'd had in years before via e-mail and phone.”
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