Anyway, I received an e-mail from Facebook customer support this afternoon that says “Facebook recently changed these settings to provide non-college users with a more mature set of options.”

So my missing 2 boxes aren’t a bug. Facebook just thinks I’m more mature than the rest of you. Go figure.

Now I’m wondering how Facebook defines “non-college users.” I’m actually a member of two university networks, but not a student, and neither network is my primary. Would I be allowed to look for “Whatever I can get” if I reprioritized my networks? Do I have to be a student? Does this mean that Facebook users who never go to college can’t look for “Random play?” (I would feel bad for any 19-year olds denied to their right to have low standards just because they didn’t go to college.)

This strikes me as very weird place (in the user interface) for Facebook to get prudish about its users’ social lives.

I e-mailed some questions back to Customer Support. Let’s see if they answer.

Anyway, I received an e-mail from Facebook customer support this afternoon that says “Facebook recently changed these settings to provide non-college users with a more mature set of options.”

So my missing 2 boxes aren’t a bug. Facebook just thinks I’m more mature than the rest of you. Go figure.

Now I’m wondering how Facebook defines “non-college users.” I’m actually a member of two university networks, but not a student, and neither network is my primary. Would I be allowed to look for “Whatever I can get” if I reprioritized my networks? Do I have to be a student? Does this mean that Facebook users who never go to college can’t look for “Random play?” (I would feel bad for any 19-year olds denied to their right to have low standards just because they didn’t go to college.)

This strikes me as very weird place (in the user interface) for Facebook to get prudish about its users’ social lives.

I e-mailed some questions back to Customer Support. Let’s see if they answer.

(Or maybe I’m just not considered cool enough for “Random Play.” Come on, Facebook — I can be just as shallow as the next guy, I swear!)

(Or maybe I’m just not considered cool enough for “Random Play.” Come on, Facebook — I can be just as shallow as the next guy, I swear!)

Getting back on topic: Adding a “Networking” purpose and friend-grouping won’t by themselves, make Facebook a competitor for LinkedIn. Like the “Dating” purpose, “Networking” is mostly an announcement that the user is OK with a certain level of unsolicited e-mail. LinkedIn still has business features, like industry categorizations and degrees of separation that Facebook doesn’t.

In fact, LinkedIn’s version of purpose is much more nuanced, letting users announce whether they’re accepting “job inquires,” “consulting offers,” “business inquiries,” etc. For power users who actually use LinkedIn to network with associates-of-associates, Facebook has nothing equivalent.

Creating the “Networking” purpose (and the future plans for friend-grouping) are only part of what it would take to compete with LinkedIn’s feature set. Facebook, at the very least, needs to add detail to the “Work” section of user profiles (industry/institution types), let business networkers fine-tune their contact preferences (this would probably require senders flagging messages by purpose, a feature Facebook barely has now), and figure out a way to encourage communication between indirect contacts that doesn’t infringe on the degrees-of-separation patent LinkedIn benefits from.

Which are all features I wouldn’t use anyway (I only joined LinkedIn because I was helping my brother pump up his network), but they seem to be things that the LinkedIn power users love.

Getting back on topic: Adding a “Networking” purpose and friend-grouping won’t by themselves, make Facebook a competitor for LinkedIn. Like the “Dating” purpose, “Networking” is mostly an announcement that the user is OK with a certain level of unsolicited e-mail. LinkedIn still has business features, like industry categorizations and degrees of separation that Facebook doesn’t.

In fact, LinkedIn’s version of purpose is much more nuanced, letting users announce whether they’re accepting “job inquires,” “consulting offers,” “business inquiries,” etc. For power users who actually use LinkedIn to network with associates-of-associates, Facebook has nothing equivalent.

Creating the “Networking” purpose (and the future plans for friend-grouping) are only part of what it would take to compete with LinkedIn’s feature set. Facebook, at the very least, needs to add detail to the “Work” section of user profiles (industry/institution types), let business networkers fine-tune their contact preferences (this would probably require senders flagging messages by purpose, a feature Facebook barely has now), and figure out a way to encourage communication between indirect contacts that doesn’t infringe on the degrees-of-separation patent LinkedIn benefits from.

Which are all features I wouldn’t use anyway (I only joined LinkedIn because I was helping my brother pump up his network), but they seem to be things that the LinkedIn power users love.