

Relationship Symmetry in Social Networks: Why Facebook will go Fully Asymmetric - Anon84
http://bokardo.com/archives/relationship-symmetry-in-social-networks-why-facebook-will-go-fully-asymmetric/

======
snprbob86
I predict that his prediction is wrong. Facebook already has an asymmetric
relationship for "pages". I instead suspect that they may add "fans" for
regular people. Changing the semantics of the default "friends" relationship
has serious implications on their very carefully crafted (and highly
effective!) privacy controls. This is a much smaller change that still yields
the four possible relationships and maps more directly to their current
privacy model.

~~~
silentOpen
While the title of the post seems to indicate a prediction for change in the
default relationship semantics, the author does suggest that Facebook will
probably maintain both models.

------
endtime
I don't buy it. On twitter, you use a handle and your page is just your tweet
history. Facebook is way more personal - asymmetric relationships would lead
to hurt feelings.

~~~
whatusername
But on facebook I can't be friends with Britney, or Obama, or Hughesy, or any
other celbrity. on Twitter I Can (at least - I can see what they're doing..
even if they don't see me)

While I don't see that as valuable for me - some users (and I'd guess a lot of
facebook users) - see that as pretty awesome.

Also - the link title is misleading - the article suggests Friend/Fan (or
Friend/Follow) will co-exist.

~~~
endtime
Well, that's what Twitter is for. But Facebook is a different type of site.
It's not a site for being "friends" with Shaq (or Britney/Obama/whoever if you
prefer).

I mean, I can do my taxes on H&R Block's site, and that's kind of awesome
(well, as awesome as doing taxes gets). But that doesn't mean Facebook should
help me with my taxes.

------
ivankirigin
I friend everyone that requests it, and block many people from my news feed.
That has made Facebook just like FriendFeed and Twitter and Tumblr for me -
just a different social graph.

