Living in a connected world and managing change

By Dale Taylor (Intel) (46 posts) on November 5, 2009 at 11:33 pm

Divorce, it happens.  How do you manage divorce with Facebook and so many other connections in life?  What if you keep finding out things you would rather not know via social networking sites?  A simple example, my ex and her family are visible to me through our common children on Facebook.  Honestly I would rather not know or see about anything to do with her and her family, yet I am confronted with it.  I want to see what my children have to say, what they are thinking, doing etc but somehow block anything related to or linked to select others.  FaceBook needs to address this because life just isn’t that simple and we need a way to manage our connections better.

Years ago I worked on a product called InfoCentral.  It was a wonderful database that gave as much power to the connections as the objects the connections were between.  You could manage your connections, including possibly multiple connections of different types between objects.  It gave you the ability to realistically map life’s complex realities into a software metaphor.  I really enjoyed that program and have been unable to find anything even close to its power in the years since.  Hopefully something like that can evolve from the successful roots of Facebook.

Currently there’s a way to avoid seeing news from specific people posted to your main page, but even that nice start needs to be improved.  Here are a couple of suggestions that would really help in connection management.

1.      Be able to prioritize, perhaps with as few as 3 levels you could group people into for news you would rather see first… priority level A, B and C.

2.      Be able to block anything having to do with, showing or related to specific individuals (without them knowing)

3.      Be able to “drop” someone from your relationships and yet have them continue to think its still there.  A stealth mode.  Someone you don’t want to offend but perhaps this relative posts updates a little too frequently for your tastes.

Small changes add up to big differences in what you see and experience when using social networking software.

 

Categories: Cool Software, Intel® Atom™ Developer Program, Mobility, Social Media & Virtual Worlds

Comments (4)

November 6, 2009 12:04 PM PST


Tim Smith		 Dale,

I think "Hiding" someone would achieve some of points 2 and 3 for you. Your connection to the person still exists, but you don't see posts from that person in your News Feed. They still will show up in comments on others' posts I think, but at least the traffic they begin will be hidden. To hide someone find one of their posts, hover over the top right corner of it to make a "Hide" button appear, and then click and select to hide the person.

A priority system would be wonderful. Right now I've grouped my connections into Family, Real friends, and Everyone Else. I can click on the group name on the left side of the screen to see the posts from just that group. It's not exactly what you're describing, but close enough for me.
November 9, 2009 10:14 PM PST

Dale Taylor (Intel)
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 Tim,
Great suggestions and I'll be giving them a try. I hadn't noticed the Hide button before... I have to admit that when accessing FB from either my phone or a portable device (MID or Netbook) many of those subtle UI issues haven't been noticed by me, or they aren't available on the iPhone for instance.
One other feature I would LOVE is the ability to hide all messages from certain apps. I'm fine with my friends and family playing Mafia Wars, I just don't want that to ever show up in my stream. If you have a way to accomplish that I would appreciate your feedback. So, how do I keep message from a certain relative showing up UNLESS it's a Mafia Wars one?
Thanks, Dale
November 10, 2009 8:40 AM PST

Gina Harris (Intel)
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 Dale,

Take another look at the Hide feature. When you scroll over it should give you the option to hide either the person or the app, so...

Hide (down arrow)
Hide Brooke
Hide Lil Farm Town

It is a big help.

Gina H.
November 10, 2009 9:17 PM PST

Dale Taylor (Intel)
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 Tim and Gina,

Thanks for the great tips. I tried them out and it seems to be working as I had hoped! How nice, no more Mafia Wars or Farmer this or that messages ;-) Yet I still see the regular messages from the people I am interested.

Thank-you very much for the tips! Dale

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