Researcher Predicts Your Next Facebook Friend 66
itwbennett writes "Stanford professor Jure Leskovec knows who your friends will be before you've even met them and has won a Microsoft fellowship for his analysis. 'Data shows that who will be our next friend on Facebook is not so random as we think,' he said. Based on information about the personal networks of users and their communication he was able to tell in advance half of the new contacts they would add shortly after. In the future the rate of correctly predicted new friends could be even higher, he said. 'We are able to train the analyzing methods,' Leskovec said."
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Dear Sir,
Your writing reminds me so very much of the debauched and ludicrous rants of Poe, sultry Rampling and one promiscuous Dahl.
I thoroughly enjoy your erotic literature, I hope to read more of your emotional exploits in the near future.
Also, I am requesting subscription to your BBS thread titled "Felching for the Beginner kinkster"
Hungrily Yours
Pick-Up Line (Score:4, Funny)
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Nerds (Score:1)
Stanford professor Jure Leskovec knows who your friends will be before you've even met them
There's a saying that goes something like this: an expert is someone who knows a great deal about very little. Perhaps the professor knows who my friends are before I meet them, however he completely fails to understand the meaning of the word "friend".
Bullshit.. I call Bullshit (Score:2)
If he is talking about Facebook then has forgotten two highly crucial variables in his complex data analysis and methods:
1) Farmville
2) Mafia Wars
After he factors that in, I would *love* to see him predict my next friend in the 7000's range. Shiiitttt.. I'll bet $20 and give him 10:1 odds.
P.S - I hate Facebook, but have loved Mafia Wars. Way I saw it, I was messing with their ability to predict precisely that. Fight the power.
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He's commenting on the fact that many users of Facebook who ALSO play Farmville/Mafiawars/something else will find themselves inviting strangers to be their friends to increase their whatever. Given the fact that there are a myriad of users utilizing these applications the odds of accurately predicting whom one might invite or accept an invite from next are much greater than were they to stick the numbers racket for clearly defined boundaries of acquaintances.
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Advertising (Score:4, Insightful)
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When I first read the headline, I had the same thought process. This whole concept is just... scary.
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The obvious application of this is advertising. Every business wants to sell something. If this research tells them how to convince you to friend them they will be all over it. Political organizations will do the same. I have to wonder if the basic concepts have broader applications outside social media.
While you probably could use it to say "do this to friend X" and there are probably some broad things that reach a large enough population it may not be all that useful for advertisers unless they want to target vary narrow groups. Now if they could put together enough variables so that only a small percentage of each is necessary to reach an audience and the entire set reaches multiple audiences then it may be useful; but we already call that marketing and advertising. They'd probably be interested in th
Can We Have a Story from 2011? (Score:2)
I quit Facebook all three times. Can this guy predict my first friend on Google+? It has been a lonely, lonely 6 weeks.
I don't want to pay the research cash for a Stanford guy to make this prediction for me. So, maybe I can get a discount and have some MIT geeks figure it out for free?
And yeah, you don't have to mention the MIT grads I know who won't accept my G+ invites. We don't need to discuss that. I just want to know who and when!!!!!!
So, so lonely here online. So lonely....
Moe
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I predict your first friend on Google+ will be one Larry Fine.
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Maybe Tom? I hear all his friends have been leaving him.
Off topic, did Anon take down fb early? (Score:1)
Obligatory (Score:2)
FRINKIAC 7 [youtube.com]
In the future... (Score:2)
"In the future the rate of correctly predicted new friends could be even higher." ...or it could be lower.
I just got myself a new FB account (Score:1)
Hi, this is a Facebook message (Score:5, Insightful)
We've added these friends to your profile automatically. You were going to add them anyway. You're welcome, because I knew you were going to thank me.
Love Mark.
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Oh, that's been figured out. What you do is get 40 random strangers to front you 50 cents each, with an offer to pay them back 1/40th of any payments that come in at 4%. Then you only loan your friend $18 and keep $2 for yourself. While you're at it you give $18 more to every homeless person you can find, and there isn't any way that anybody could lose money on such a deal. But, if they're worried they can all promise to pay each other $500 for each homeless guy who defaults.
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We've added these friends to your profile automatically.
If you do not want that we add these frinds automatically in the future you can opt out. This easy 30-steps-opt-out process is described somewhere in our FAQ.
Half the time (Score:1)
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You got that wrong. Half of the time he was wrong. The other half he predicted that the person who just got friended (and who he predicted wrongly) will friend the first person back.
So. Where's my grant?
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So shut it down. (Score:2)
If analysts can now predict relationships without FB, then they can make money off those relationships without FB. So turn off all the servers and give me back my free time and shut down FB please - it's no longer needed as a profit source.
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Can it predict (Score:1)
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True. Although obviously Facebook has an algorithm to try and do this already (their "Find Friends" result, which they changed recently). It's a pretty weak algorithm though.
Research not worthy a student (Score:1)
I think the research is bullshit and the professor is an idiot. What the hell "shortly after means"? Some time in future? Yeah there is a certain probability that I'll add some of my friend's friends in future. Pick a random one. It's not hard to be correct half the times.
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My Farcebook account URL is /dev/null
C'mon, surely you can predict my next FB friend; you claimed to be able to do it, after all.
Idiot.
Actually, given the above, I think it's pretty easy to predict that you have no friends, nor are you likely to make any anytime soon.
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Then it seems you're just as likely to be correct in your prediction as he is.
Go figure.
Article lacks important information (Score:2)
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Unless someone makes me understand the complexities underneath, I am going to assume that anyone can solve this problem by taking one course in Machine Learning.
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what surprises me (Score:1)
self-referential (Score:2)
So Facebook has become self-referential now?
Sorry, 90% of the people I add as friends I do so because I've met them IRL. How are you going to predict that?
But, apparently, I'm in the minority and too many people have begun to consider the people they add on Facebook to be their friends instead of the other way around. Am I getting old, or is the world getting stranger?
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Social Networks Don't Waste Time, People Do (Score:2)
Very unclear description of 'predict'. (Score:1)
Can someone actually find anywhere in the article where it states exactly what it means by "tell in advance half of the new contacts"? Does this mean they literally pin-pointed the exact person 50% of the time ahead of time? Because that sounds like a heap of bullshit. If it just means it predicts some aspects of the next person you will friend/be friended by, then I would find it much easier to believe yet much less impressive.
Do they include genealogical research? (Score:2)
The most recently added individual on my FB friends list is an illegitimate third cousin that no one in the family knew about. He took his step-father's surname. While he does, in one sense, fall within their "six degrees" model, I doubt that any algorithm could have discovered him. There were certainly no clues on Facebook.
The 'friends' we pick on F@c3B00k.... (Score:1)
I am more interested in preemptive unfriending... (Score:2)