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@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
_______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
-- Deh. [+Sol] _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/