I’m sorry for taking over Facebook

August 8, 2007 By

Dare Obasanjo says all he sees on his Facebook news feed is my stuff.

I’m sorry.

I get even with Dare, though. I added his blog post to my news feed so the rest of my 4,600 friends will see Dare’s post. :-)

UPDATE: I’m sitting next to Ryan Stewart (Adobe evangelist) at the Ignite Seattle event. He just signed into Facebook and only two of my items are on his Facebook news feed. So, maybe Dare needs better friends. Heheh.

UPDATE2: I changed many of my Facebook settings to only show most of my items to my friends. That should make it less “noisy” for other people.

Filed Under: 1
  • http://donmcarthur.com/ Don McArthur

    It’s all just high school, forever. Yawn.

  • http://donmcarthur.com Don McArthur

    It’s all just high school, forever. Yawn.

  • http://www.dahowlett.com dahowlett

    I would never have known that if Dare had not pointed it out. But I don’t care anyway. Sorry Dare but as I’ve said, RS consistently adds more value to me than anyone else I know so…small price to pay methinks.

  • http://www.accmanpro.com Dennis Howlet

    I would never have known that if Dare had not pointed it out. But I don’t care anyway. Sorry Dare but as I’ve said, RS consistently adds more value to me than anyone else I know so…small price to pay methinks.

  • http://www.samharrelson.com/ Sam Harrelson

    Just read that post after having it sent from a friend. I’ve noticed the same thing. I’m wondering if Facebook borrowed from Gabe’s code at TechMeme :)

  • http://www.samharrelson.com Sam Harrelson

    Just read that post after having it sent from a friend. I’ve noticed the same thing. I’m wondering if Facebook borrowed from Gabe’s code at TechMeme :)

  • Jeremy

    You are the face of Facebook.

    Born again, mixed up, shallow as h3ll, expecting a baby any day, and yet I love you so (and I’m a man).

  • Jeremy

    You are the face of Facebook.

    Born again, mixed up, shallow as h3ll, expecting a baby any day, and yet I love you so (and I’m a man).

  • David

    Not that anyone would want to ^_~

    But you can choose to get less news from certain friends.

  • David

    Not that anyone would want to ^_~

    But you can choose to get less news from certain friends.

  • http://blogs.msdn.com/betsya Betsy Aoki

    Sorry I missed you Robert. I would have been at ignite but there was a friend from out of town who came by and this was his only night to go to dinner.

    I hope it was fun!

    Betsy

    PS I’m glad to be have you as a pal on Facebook.

  • http://blogs.msdn.com/betsya Betsy Aoki

    Sorry I missed you Robert. I would have been at ignite but there was a friend from out of town who came by and this was his only night to go to dinner.

    I hope it was fun!

    Betsy

    PS I’m glad to be have you as a pal on Facebook.

  • http://www.facereviews.com/ Rodney Rumford

    Thats OK Robert. Your news is the relevant for me. I have used the facebook filter and it has eliminated noise from some of my friends. So i guess it is working for me.

    No need to mute you. ;)

  • http://www.facereviews.com Rodney Rumford

    Thats OK Robert. Your news is the relevant for me. I have used the facebook filter and it has eliminated noise from some of my friends. So i guess it is working for me.

    No need to mute you. ;)

  • http://www.google.com/ Mark Lucovsky

    Robert, Now you know why I de-friended you the other day… I was tired of scoble-spam filling my news feed every day!

  • http://www.google.com Mark Lucovsky

    Robert, Now you know why I de-friended you the other day… I was tired of scoble-spam filling my news feed every day!

  • http://scobleizer.com/ Robert Scoble

    Mark: I know, but not sure what I can do about it.

    Twitter is the same way. I’m reading thousands of people and I respond to them. So I look “noisy” to lots of people.

    I guess the only answer is “unsubscribe.”

    But is there something I could do?

    I’m certainly looking through the settings to see if I can turn down my own noise level.

  • http://scobleizer.com/ Robert Scoble

    Mark: I know, but not sure what I can do about it.

    Twitter is the same way. I’m reading thousands of people and I respond to them. So I look “noisy” to lots of people.

    I guess the only answer is “unsubscribe.”

    But is there something I could do?

    I’m certainly looking through the settings to see if I can turn down my own noise level.

  • http://e.inste.in/ Alexis

    Looking at Dare’s post, he’s actually marked Robert as someone he wants to see fewer updates from, and yet still the vast majority of his newsfeed posts are coming from Robert.

    Presumably Facebook has some metric of measuring a user’s importance, similar to Flickr’s measure of the interestingness of a photograph. It seems likely that Robert’s profile has a very high rating on this metric, which is causing the request to see less items from Robert to not have a significant effect…

  • http://e.inste.in/ Alexis

    Looking at Dare’s post, he’s actually marked Robert as someone he wants to see fewer updates from, and yet still the vast majority of his newsfeed posts are coming from Robert.

    Presumably Facebook has some metric of measuring a user’s importance, similar to Flickr’s measure of the interestingness of a photograph. It seems likely that Robert’s profile has a very high rating on this metric, which is causing the request to see less items from Robert to not have a significant effect…

  • http://www.baltimoremick.com/blog Jason J. Thomas

    I have to admit, Robert, I am trying to use one of these social network things, but when I fire up Facebook, most of your items are filling up my news feed. I presumably could filter it, but I think I need to spend more time on Facebook before doing that.

    You certainly are blowing up my Facebook news feed, though!

  • http://www.baltimoremick.com/blog Jason J. Thomas

    I have to admit, Robert, I am trying to use one of these social network things, but when I fire up Facebook, most of your items are filling up my news feed. I presumably could filter it, but I think I need to spend more time on Facebook before doing that.

    You certainly are blowing up my Facebook news feed, though!

  • http://www.campusfish.com/Jeff Jeff Putz

    I’ve been thinking about removing you as a friend for just this reason. :)

  • http://www.campusfish.com/Jeff Jeff Putz

    I’ve been thinking about removing you as a friend for just this reason. :)

  • LayZ

    @9 “But is there something I could do?”

    Stop being a narcissist?

  • LayZ

    @9 “But is there something I could do?”

    Stop being a narcissist?

  • Chris

    Hey Robert I had to un-friend you as well for the same reasons. However its not because of anything your doing wrong, your just way more active then my other friends. I didn’t know about the ‘less’ feature but it sounds like it doesn’t work the way we need it to. In the end Facebook just needs to add a ‘volume’ switch that measures overall activity in your feed from your friends and normalizes it, putting a simple icon to indicate more activity can be viewed by visiting that persons profile. A mute switch wouldn’t be bad either.

    So chin-up, I un-friended you in the API sense, not the social sense. :)

  • Chris

    Hey Robert I had to un-friend you as well for the same reasons. However its not because of anything your doing wrong, your just way more active then my other friends. I didn’t know about the ‘less’ feature but it sounds like it doesn’t work the way we need it to. In the end Facebook just needs to add a ‘volume’ switch that measures overall activity in your feed from your friends and normalizes it, putting a simple icon to indicate more activity can be viewed by visiting that persons profile. A mute switch wouldn’t be bad either.

    So chin-up, I un-friended you in the API sense, not the social sense. :)

  • http://blogbusinesssummit.com/ Teresa Valdez Klein

    You do tend to overwhelm the news feed, Robert. :-)

    You might want to let your friends know that there’s a way to reduce the Scobleization of their News Feeds. It’s pretty simple:

    1) Go to your news feed and click the “Preferences” link in the upper right hand corner of the News Feed screen
    2) Scroll to the section of the preferences menu that says “Less About These Friends.”
    3) Enter “Robert Scoble” in the “Person:” box and hit Add.

    It’s kind of hard to thumbs-down you, Robert. You’re so darn interesting! ;-) But given your prodigious use of Facebook, it seems that downgrading your feed status means that you generate about the same number of stories as a normal person would if their status were not downgraded.

    Just a suggestion for those whose feeds are becoming Scoble central.

  • http://blogbusinesssummit.com Teresa Valdez Klein

    You do tend to overwhelm the news feed, Robert. :-)

    You might want to let your friends know that there’s a way to reduce the Scobleization of their News Feeds. It’s pretty simple:

    1) Go to your news feed and click the “Preferences” link in the upper right hand corner of the News Feed screen
    2) Scroll to the section of the preferences menu that says “Less About These Friends.”
    3) Enter “Robert Scoble” in the “Person:” box and hit Add.

    It’s kind of hard to thumbs-down you, Robert. You’re so darn interesting! ;-) But given your prodigious use of Facebook, it seems that downgrading your feed status means that you generate about the same number of stories as a normal person would if their status were not downgraded.

    Just a suggestion for those whose feeds are becoming Scoble central.

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  • http://jc989.noadware.hop.clickbank.net/ Jim Camp

    I toyed with the idea of visiting the “preferences” link, but I thought better of it !
    Maybe next time !

  • http://jc989.noadware.hop.clickbank.net/ Jim Camp

    I toyed with the idea of visiting the “preferences” link, but I thought better of it !
    Maybe next time !

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  • http://www.ianwhite.net/ Ian

    gurgle, gurgle….

    You coudl tune down your plaxo settings as well :-)

  • http://www.ianwhite.net Ian

    gurgle, gurgle….

    You coudl tune down your plaxo settings as well :-)

  • http://blendingthemix.com/ Paul Fabretti

    Big respect there Robert. I agree with what Dare is saying but I love what you do and at the same time am aware of changes I could make to reduce the “Scoble dominance”!

  • http://blendingthemix.com Paul Fabretti

    Big respect there Robert. I agree with what Dare is saying but I love what you do and at the same time am aware of changes I could make to reduce the “Scoble dominance”!

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  • http://www.freerollz.com/ Greg Free

    But given your prodigious use of Facebook, it seems that downgrading your feed status means that you generate about the same number of stories as a normal person would if their status were not downgraded.

  • http://www.linuxpoker.net/ Jim C

    It’s all good Rob. Your news is the relevant for me. I have used the facebook filter and it has eliminated noise from some of my friends, u included :P

  • http://www.linuxpoker.net Jim C

    It’s all good Rob. Your news is the relevant for me. I have used the facebook filter and it has eliminated noise from some of my friends, u included :P

  • http://www.freerollz.com Greg Free

    But given your prodigious use of Facebook, it seems that downgrading your feed status means that you generate about the same number of stories as a normal person would if their status were not downgraded.

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