What Facebook and Your Parents Sex Life Have in Common

They both involve too much information! (or TMI if you speak teenage girl) I'm not sure if anyone has noticed recently but the raw amount of information on Facebook has been increasing dramatically. Now I know what you are thinking "Wow Mark...Facebook having a lot of information...brilliant observation." Condescending smirks aside, I noticed this the other day after posting my most recent blog post Music Without "The Industry". I noticed in Google Analytics that the post got less Facebook traffic than usual and, since nobody could ever see a new post by me and not want to read it, I determined something had to be up.

Because people frequently complain about this blog being hard to find (Its called a bookmark!) I post one link through my personal Facebook and another through the A Delicious Blend Facebook Page. After posting I usually refresh my home page to confirm nothing has gone awry. This time instead of each appearing above one another in my news feed neither surfaced. I checked back to insure both posts went through and everything was fine. The problem was (and still is) that they were buried under a more massive amount of Facebook info (if anyone can come up with a clever trendy name for Facebook information let me know) than ever before.



I think the fact that people share information by the ton on Facebook is great. While I don't care what adorable thing your cat just did or what your GPA was last semester (Alec), who am I to judge what information is worthy of sharing? I personally love sharing new music, interesting articles, and of course my own blog posts on Facebook. I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who hate seeing links to my screechy nonsensical music or self centered blogosphere blather. All the same there are probably people who can't believe your cat always tries, but never succeeds to catch your goldfish or who are riveted by your 3.2 (kudos).

Over the past year the amount of traffic going to Facebook has exploded. So much so that last May it surpassed Google as the most visited website.



Like I said, I think the more people share on Facebook the better. The next major step for Facebook to take is upping the filtration of information that gets to you. While I know this filtration exists (not enough to explain how it works) the surge in traffic has probably just been too much to proportionately compensate for. TMI hasn't always been such a huge problem. Back when people read the news paper the costs of publishing info was so great that only the most "important" information made it through. The cost of publishing information today is so little ($0.00) that the only question is what shouldn't we publish? After all, every empty status update about your cat comes with the potential self esteem boost of somebody commenting on it and reaffirming that someone out there might care about you.

Speaking of screechy nonsensical music...

N-E-R-D & Daft Punk - Hypnotize You (Nero Remix) by TheDropFather