Facebook Stops Recommending Friends
Posted by Nick O'Neill on April 10th, 2008 2:37 PMHave you been trying to find more friends to add recently? Were you able to find a few via the recently added friend finder? Well it looks like Facebook has taken down the feature. Our guess about why that happened is that it was taking up too much processing overhead. Whenever you tried to look for new friends using the tool it took a good 30 seconds before the page was able to open.
Graph theory can be highly complex once and can require a significant amount of server capacity. My guess is that Facebook will reinstate a cached version of the feature in the short run but not have it as a dynamic feature. The reality is that trying to navigate various nodes in the graph can take a lot of time and as already stated, processor load. There is no word on when the feature will be back but my guess is that it may be a while.
Imagine trying to connect all 70 million people currently on Facebook. Given their continued growth, it takes enough overhead just to manage servers, security and fight spam. Trying to navigate the entire graph is extremely complex and while it is one of Facebook’s focuses, there are other priorities on their table currently. It will be interesting to see how long before we see a cached version of this reappear. I could imagine them recommending 2 or 3 friends to you on occasion but being able to dynamically create the list every time you load the page is extremely complex.
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April 10th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
Hello Nick. I just checked Facebook, and it seems that the friend recommendation feature is still running. As a matter of fact, Facebook just added 'x' next to each friend so that you can stop those who are not your friends from showing up again in the home page.
April 10th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Hello Nick. I just checked Facebook, and it seems that the friend recommendation feature is still running. As a matter of fact, Facebook just added ‘x’ next to each friend so that you can stop those who are not your friends from showing up again in the home page.
April 10th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
You're talking about the “People You May Know” feature, right?
This feature isn't down for me.
Also, it never took anywhere close to 30 seconds (or even more 1 second) for it to load.
April 10th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
The feature is also still available to me. It's always loaded quickly for me too, I didn't even know there was an issue.
April 10th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
They should get rid of that feature completely. I'm upset that I see people who I despise show up on it. I'm not friends with them in the 1st place for a reason.
April 10th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
You’re talking about the “People You May Know” feature, right?
This feature isn’t down for me.
Also, it never took anywhere close to 30 seconds (or even more 1 second) for it to load.
April 10th, 2008 at 5:10 pm
The feature is also still available to me. It’s always loaded quickly for me too, I didn’t even know there was an issue.
April 10th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
They should get rid of that feature completely. I’m upset that I see people who I despise show up on it. I’m not friends with them in the 1st place for a reason.
April 10th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
Erm… don't click it? May help..
April 10th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
Erm… don’t click it? May help..
April 10th, 2008 at 9:03 pm
Yeah, the feature is still there but they've given you the option to get rid of the people that you dont really know.
April 10th, 2008 at 10:03 pm
Yeah, the feature is still there but they’ve given you the option to get rid of the people that you dont really know.
April 11th, 2008 at 7:23 am
Ditto the above posts - both “People you may know” and all of the find a friend tools on the find friends page are still there.
April 11th, 2008 at 8:23 am
Ditto the above posts - both “People you may know” and all of the find a friend tools on the find friends page are still there.
April 12th, 2008 at 6:43 am
Its now on the right side panel.
April 12th, 2008 at 7:43 am
Its now on the right side panel.
April 15th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
mine is gone and i was looking to find it again cuz I liked the feature. Sure there are tons of people I do not wish to add but so what. It also helps find other people that I didnt think to look for on FB for various reasons, the main reason being I didnt think they'd have one. In my search for the feature I realized there are multiple groups to get facebook to stop the feature. SO DUMB. The lamest excuse is for stalker reasons. Hello… you have a profile on the internet. If someone wanted to stalk you chances are they are already. lol. I hope my feature shows up again soon. My boyfriend also likes this feature and some people that he's really good friends with were found using it. Its helpful.
April 15th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
mine is gone and i was looking to find it again cuz I liked the feature. Sure there are tons of people I do not wish to add but so what. It also helps find other people that I didnt think to look for on FB for various reasons, the main reason being I didnt think they’d have one. In my search for the feature I realized there are multiple groups to get facebook to stop the feature. SO DUMB. The lamest excuse is for stalker reasons. Hello… you have a profile on the internet. If someone wanted to stalk you chances are they are already. lol. I hope my feature shows up again soon. My boyfriend also likes this feature and some people that he’s really good friends with were found using it. Its helpful.
April 16th, 2008 at 7:19 pm
I hate it. I don't want facebook to recommend me to all theses strangers. I'm stopping my facebook account. this is ridiculous!!!
April 16th, 2008 at 8:19 pm
I hate it. I don’t want facebook to recommend me to all theses strangers. I’m stopping my facebook account. this is ridiculous!!!