So ever wondered which friends show up on your facebook profile under your friends section ? Is it the orkut algo where the most recent friends who have logged in show up or is this completely random ?
It is incredibly difficult to know what algorithm facebook has intalled in order to display your friends but I remember someone from facebook gave a small talk at the Carnegie Mellon University last year. They said that generally the list of friends is random with the additional importance/bias to the people you are actually stalking ! (Simply put the number of times you check their profile , their recent activities and the likes) .
So basically every user activity at facebook is logged and hence manipulated in a manner than it suits the best on your profile. Stalking someone ? Facebook knows !
#1 by Sally on Montag, 12. Januar 2009
Vey interesting. I suspected this from the friends that showed up on other’s pages,knowing who they were “obsessed” with. The reason people haven’t figured it out is that the 6 that show up when you view your page are random and not the same ones that others see when they look at your page.
#2 by Nicole on Donnerstag, 26. Februar 2009
i noticed that as well that it’s always the same few people that show up on my friend list. but i’m not sure it is the ones that i stalk or the ppl that stalk me, because usually the random few that tend to show up more often are the ppl i don’t go look at their profile or even care…
so i’m not sure how the facebook algorithm works.
#3 by Lena on Samstag, 6. Juni 2009
I also noticed that it’s usually the same random people that show up on my profile. However, most of them are the people I rarely talk to or whose profiles I rarely ever click on, so I don’t think that is how the algorithm works.
#4 by RB68 on Montag, 8. Juni 2009
I do not believe that applies to all 6. There’s only 1 that shows up frequently that I check on that person’s profile regularly. Usually the other 5 are ones that I never visit or interact with.
#5 by RB68 on Montag, 8. Juni 2009
Oh and I think it could actually be who is visiting your page…maybe (?).
#6 by Nate on Sonntag, 21. Juni 2009
Same as nicole ^^
#7 by Mizfit on Montag, 6. Juli 2009
It’s actually the other way around! It’s the people that have been checking out your profile show up on your profile.
#8 by Abhijeet on Mittwoch, 5. August 2009
I keep seeing a near static group of 6 friends on my profile, with may be one or two changing, when I open my profile page again and again at a given point in time. It doesn’t seem to be very random as such. Besides, more often than not, those are not the profiles I stalk. I am just wondering, if facebook’s algo of displaying friends is “who logged in recently” just like orkut.
#9 by Shavar Ross on Freitag, 14. August 2009
I think you guys are all missing it. I totally agree with Mizfit. Not 100% sure, but from my close observance, when you’re logged in and view the friends on your Facebook page; those are the friends who last visited YOUR profile page. As far as the algorithm–it’s possible that those are also the the same friends who frequently visit your page more so than others, not sure.
If you refresh your page, you’ll see that FB shows a few more friends but never just random friends continuously. Another dead give away.
Lastly, the friends that I see are on my profile page are the ones I expected to see on there because of other factors such as them commenting on my updates, recently adding me as a friend, etc.
I think it’s Facebook’s little hidden gift to us since they do not allow profile trackers, lol.
#10 by Marissa on Sonntag, 16. August 2009
Same as Shavar. There are some friend of mine who actually I’m ignoring, but you can believe me that at least one of them is always showed in the list even if I never check the profile out.
That makes me think that friends aren’t definitly NOT random and neither people who we are stalking.
Mizfit were right, it’s the way around, I’m pretty sure.
#11 by Capitan on Dienstag, 1. September 2009
I agree with the last two comments. Although I wouldn’t necessarily call it “stalking”. But I’m pretty sure it’s the people who’ve visited my profile page or clicked on a link of mine.
1) It’s fairly static (if I refresh, it’s the same people showing up);
2) quite frequently, it’s people who’ve sent me a message or email or commented on something of mine;
3) many of them are people i don’t interact with ever, but who I suspect are interested in certain links I’ve posted or whatever.
#12 by dina on Mittwoch, 2. September 2009
interesting – from observation i’ve felt that it is not truly random but could not figure out if it is friends whom I visit or whom visit me (stalk is such an ugly word!!). I just ran and experiment and clicked few a few friends and several turned up on my thumbnails when i went back to my profile. Maybe it’s a bit of both – people who you visit and ones who visit you – no way to proove it though!
#13 by Missy on Mittwoch, 16. September 2009
Hi, Im very interested in this as Ive wondered if this has anything to do with Facebook Chat? As in the people who keep showing up no matter how many times you refresh the page, could it be that you’ve recently been chatting with them on facebook or do you believe its all to do with who goes to your page or whos page you visit and such? Thanks!!
#14 by Gretch on Montag, 21. September 2009
It honestly seems like people who visit my profile AND people whose profiles I’ve visited. I did a lot of visiting the other day: those people all showed up in my thumbnails. Today I wasn’t on FB and the people who showed up and didn’t change are people I know look often at my page. Maybe it defaults to “those who looked” when you aren’t logging any looking. It seems like a distinct pattern over a couple of days.
#15 by dina on Samstag, 26. September 2009
mmm they seem to have removed the people you might know function. this always seemed to me to be non-friends who attempted to view your profile were at the top of that list of thumbnails.
#16 by Anas Steffernoferson on Dienstag, 29. September 2009
I’d agree that the random friends seem to be people who’ve last visited your page. I have the same situation where the friends displayed only rotate between about 10-15 people for days at at time….I’m not very active on facebook…so I would guess only close friends view my page in general.
The people that are displayed also include people’s profiles that I’ve never EVER even visited…I just accepted their friend request….but I have a tendency to think that those people view my profile a good bit
#17 by facenooker on Dienstag, 29. September 2009
Well I know it is not radom that much is for sure. I’ve run a little experiment now and one friend in particular has shown up in my list >60% of the time over the last few months, when statistically if it were random he should only be there 5% of the time or less. It also happens to be a guy who (I don’t stalk his home or anything) but I check his page frequently. also, I would suspect he might check mine frequently. I would love to know if it is my “stalking” or his “stalking” causing this.
#18 by Missy on Sonntag, 4. Oktober 2009
Sally, Im curious as to what you said about “others seeing different friends than we do when we look at our own profiles” I agree what we see is most likely a combination of whos viewed our profile and who we viewed most but why when I visit my friends page do I see the same “random” person on their list no matter how many times I refresh? ( experimenting to figure this out). Id say that person shows up at least 80% of the time when I view their page? How random is it If Im seeing it on someone else’s page like this as well? Not sure if anyone answers questions here but hoped to try to get some insight.
#19 by Douglas on Samstag, 7. November 2009
This seems like a website dedicated to this subject, so thought I’d give my input. I have noticed similar people popping up on my thumbnails. I’ve noticed frequent people too. For example, this girl who I got on well with at a wedding and then emailed shortly after. She’s been popping up on my profile frequently. I can only say that because we’ve been in touch by email, and because we have pictures tagged of us, that may be why. I have no idea if she checks out my profile reguarly… but i certainly have checked out hers a few times… it’s the same with others. It sounds like this ties into what a lot of people are saying here.
#20 by Douglas on Samstag, 7. November 2009
Actually, looking back over this, I tend to agree with the comments that suggest the random friends are people who have visited your profile, or people’s profile who you have visited. I’ve actually hidden a few people’s status updates, like the ones I find intimidating. But I’ve noticed that those profiles I tend to check regularly do show up on my own random thumbnails.