Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2011/12/28/facebook_suggests_you_get_out_more/
Facebook suggests you get out more - and it'll tell you how
It knows what you did last summer and next summer
Posted in Security, 28th December 2011 09:42 GMT
In another move by Facebook to predict user behaviour, the human herding site has introduced Suggested Events: a feature that will offer bright ideas for what you should do on Friday night. Zuckerberg knows how your little mind works.
Suggested Events will replace Friends' Events in the lefthand column of the Facebook home page and, as the name suggests, shows you parties, meet-ups and such social stuff that Facebook thinks you'd enjoy gatecrashing.
Normally, the site will only show you the events that you've been invited to, but Suggested Events mines your Facebook venue check-ins, friends' RVSPs and even music taste to fuel an algorithm that can figure out how you'd like to spend your free time.
Facebook is in the process of testing the feature but is rolling it out to its millions of users.
The optimistic will see this as Facebook encouraging offline interaction - prising web junkies off their internet connections and out into the real world. Critics see it as one more freaky Facebook mind game that reveals just how much the site knows about you and your life. It is certainly a move that positions Facebook more firmly at the centre of events advertising and events discovery. ®