Facebook friend mining
Libby lost a good friend to technology a long time ago, and prefers to live in the real world rather than in an electronic bubble, but accepts that Facebook is an excellent tool for hunting down long lost people and admits to using it for data mining in the same way that Facebook does.
“I not only located my old friend, Toby, by Facebook but a lot of other people I hadn’t seen since leaving school,” laughs Libby. “So, signing up did give me the opportunity to search for old friends – but since their pages were essentially ‘dead’, no action for years – there was no point to me sending them a message.”
“Facebook is good if you are using it daily and keeping in touch with friends all over the world, but it is silly to use it when your ‘friends’ work next to you,” laughs Libby. “And it is ridiculous to use it hoping that a long, lost friend will find you because by the time they may locate your profile, you have moved on and your account is essentially dead.”
“After a week on Facebook, signing in every day to check on my workmate’s daily dribbles – and considering the remote possibility that someone from my schooldays may find me and message me - I’ve had enough,” says Libby. “I won’t delete the account – if that’s even possible – but I will set my privacy to the highest level so that my profile will not appear in any searches.”
“That way, I can get on with my life and will never have reason to sign in to see if someone is looking for me!”
“If someone wants to find me, they can do it the old fashioned way.”
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Labels: data mining, facebook, friends, friendship, social marketing, technology
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