[Air-L] How does Facebook find friends?

[Richard Forno]

It's magic....not black magic, or dark magic -- but Bit Magic(tm)!!   :)

I suspect it uses the email contacts and/or user names to cross-match recommendations.   LinkedIn/Twitter seems to use such an algorithm/system to find out who you might want to connect with -- ie, a degrees-of-separation thing.

Frankly, I find that a bit unsettling at times; I was trying to set up a Twitter feed for my department's use later this year --- and to my surprise, within 5 minutes of registering, I had friends following me because my name (not email) was in their contact lists elsewhere.  The lesson?  If you want to reserve a Twitter account for future use and keep it stealthy as part of a larger PR rollout, don't use your real name or email addy when registering.  You can always change it later when you launch.  :)

-rick



On Sep 24, 2010, at 07:39 , Daniel Oliveira wrote:

> It is either pure magic...or Facebook uses his e-mail contacts!
> 
> Although he did not allow Facebook to forward friendship requests, Facebook
> still reads the adresses and builds up suggestions!
> 
> Thats the way I see it!
> 
> Daniel Tilly Oliveira
> Lisbon-Portugal
> 
> On Fri, Sep 24, 2010 at 7:14 AM, Anders Fagerjord <
> anders.fagerjord at media.uio.no> wrote:
> 
>> Dear all,
>> 
>> does anyone understand the Facebook friend suggestions algorithm?
>> 
>> Last night, my stepson joined Facebook. Immediately, it suggested he be
>> friends with his mother, his grandfather, and his granduncle.
>> 
>> How could Facebook know they were related? They had no friends in common,
>> and didn't share friends-of-friends either. His last name is common in
>> Norway (and his granduncle has a different name). He didn't enter any phone
>> number or postal address.
>> 
>> He used his gmail account when he joined Facebook, but did not allow the
>> book to search his e-mail contacts (and he doesn't know his uncle's e-mail
>> address).
>> 
>> Does anyone understand how Facebook pulls this trick?
>> 
>> --anders
>> 
>> --
>> Anders Fagerjord, dr.art.
>> Associate professor, Head of Studies
>> 
>> Department of Media and Communication,
>> University of Oslo
>> P.O. Box 1093 Blindern
>> N-0317 OSLO
>> Norway
>> 
>> http://www.media.uio.no   http://fagerjord.no
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
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> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Deh.
> [+Sol]
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