Scripting News: Easy upgrade to Facebook

Scripting News, the weblog started in 1997 that bootstrapped the blogging revolution.

Easy upgrade to Facebook

When someone lists you as a "friend" on Facebook you get to confirm it. That's good.

When you click on the "Confirm" button, you get a list of choices that almost never seems to have the right choice. Does that mean you don't have a relationship with the person? No. It means that the list of possible choices hasn't been updated since Facebook was opened to people outside the education system.

For example, Jeff Jarvis requested that I confirm that he is a friend. Of course I'm going to confirm that, because there is a relationship between Jeff and myself that should be part of my social network. In this case, Jeff is part of my blogging network, and I am part of his. We point to each other frequently. When we run into each other at a conference we have friendly words for each other. If you want me to introduce you to Jeff, I can probably do it, and vice versa. Also, Jeff has introduced me to a company I subsequently invested in (not something students usually do).

Jeremy Allaire is also in my queue, and is verified immediately. What's the relationship? We were both early relatively successful web developers. We once, jointly, floated an interesting proposal for a tech standard that didn't go anywhere. I'm a founder of and pundit in a field that Allaire has started a company in (and raised a prodigious amount of money). He probably reads my blog.

And there's the "delighted by" checkbox for women I'll never date (too young, live too far away, etc), but who nonetheless flatter me by requesting friendship.

Another checkbox -- "fantasizes about." ";->"

PS: For extra credit, relationship-defining should be part of Facebook's open architecture.

Last update: Thursday, June 3, 2010; 4:00:49 PM

~About the Author~

Dave Winer, 55, is a visiting scholar at NYU's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. He pioneered the development of weblogs, syndication (RSS), podcasting, outlining, and web content management software; former contributing editor at Wired Magazine, research fellow at Harvard Law School, entrepreneur, and investor in web media companies. A native New Yorker, he received a Master's in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin, a Bachelor's in Mathematics from Tulane University and currently lives in New York City.

"The protoblogger." - NY Times.

"The father of modern-day content distribution." - PC World.

One of BusinessWeek's 25 Most Influential People on the Web.

"Helped popularize blogging, podcasting and RSS." - Time.

"The father of blogging and RSS." - BBC.

"RSS was born in 1997 out of the confluence of Dave Winer's 'Really Simple Syndication' technology, used to push out blog updates, and Netscape's 'Rich Site Summary', which allowed users to create custom Netscape home pages with regularly updated data flows." - Tim O'Reilly.

Mail: scriptingnews1mail at gmail dot com.

Apr Jun