FB

I have a Facebook page. So does about 90% of the population of the Free World, and most of the Not-So-Free World too. I don't use it for much. I chat with a few friends, I play the occasional round of Mafia Wars, I post the occasional irrelevant status, and that's about it.

But I have certain ideas for how Facebook and Zynga might improve matters, at least for me.

1. Let me hide those useless, annoying So-and-so just became friends with so-and-so messages. You know what? I don't care. The ones that really make me sigh are the So-and-so just became friends with So-and-so and 249 other people. I haven't done a comprehensive study, but I imagine at least a quarter of all Internet traffic these days is composed of these bullshit friend notifications. There must be a way to hide them, but if there is, I can't figure it out.

2. Stop changing Mafia Wars every day. Every time I play (which, I admit, isn't all that often) it looks different and works differently. I know programmers like to change things, but gee whiz, you guys need to develop some sort of configuration control discipline, and that means not changing things just because you can or because it justifies the salaries of your programmers.

3. And while we're at it, can we lose the "Easter Crime Basket" thing? I think that's kind of tacky, personally. Well, one person's tacky is another person's edgy, I guess.

4. Is there a way to filter out So-and-so the Wonder Daughter YouTube video links? Some YouTube links are useful or fun - my wife's horse videos, the occasional OK Go or Insomnium or Bowling For Soup music video. Even clips from the Dr. Horrible Video Blog. But at least a third of the running footage of my status update consists of Wonder Moms posting YouTube videos of their Wonder Daughters - here's so-and-so winning a snowboarding event, here's so-and-so accepting a Nobel Prize for Physics, here's so-and-so passing a navy bean through her nose while her less talented friends look on with mixtures of envy and adulation. I have nothing against the Wonder Moms and their Wonder Daughters, but I get a little weary of slogging through all this YouTubery every day just so I can make sure my actual friends haven't been in a car accident or anything.

5. Please don't send me any more Sorority Life game requests. I am most decidedly not the target demographic for that game.

6. While you're at it, please desist from sending me updates that are quotidian to the point of being lame. "Ok, going to bed now." "Ok, realized that macaroni and cheese is orange." "Ok, bought some navy beans for the Wonder Daughter to pass through her nose later." I don't care, and if you keep it up, I'm going to start posting updates on the success (or lack thereof) of my personal hygiene on your feed.

7. Let's also cut down on the number of pretentiously pseudo-intellectual updates. I recently saw one that just said "Actually..." Actually what? Or those choice "So-and-so thought that life was a beef brisket, but oh he was SO wrong" ones. Unless you're a French existentialist (and maybe not even then) this sort of pseudo-philosophical musing strikes your friends as tedious drivel and doesn't make you seem thoughtful.

8. I find the "Burma-Shave Updates" annoying. This is where someone spaces out an update over the span of 15 separate updates, one word at a time. Unless you really are selling Burma-Shave (and nobody is, these days) or unless the joke is really good, it's just annoying. See #7.

9. Let's try to cut down on the number of So-and-so just became a fan of such and such updates, shall we? Sometimes I'm interested. If a friend suddenly becomes a fan of a given book, author, movie, album or whatever, I'm liable to think "Hmm, I wonder why that is! Perhaps this bears further examination." But if your update is So-and-so just became a fan of yellowish objects, all you've done is waste my time.

10. "U" isn't a word. It's a vowel. Use it as such.

11. So the Wonder Mom posts a wonderful, heartwarming YouTube clip of the Wonder Daughter doing something. Here's a kute video of the Wonder Daughter eating Spaghetti-Os! That's bad enough (see #4 above), but then there are 1,584 comments that all read exactly alike: "I LUV IT! I LUV IT! I LUV LUV LUV LUV LUV IT!" I hate to sound contrary, but I disagree. But if the Wonder Daughter suddenly erupts Spaghetti-Os like Mount Vesuvius, do let me know.

12. There needs to be a Plausibility Index associated with each update, which would be especially helpful in regard to updates from People Who Live Way More Large Than You. So here's some long status message, you're tired, and you don't want to read something along the lines of Well, today I wrote a novel, trained a set of sled dogs, had brunch with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, did some advanced work on cold fusion, edited my poetry manuscript, painted Sandra Bullock's portrait in oils, and went windsurfing. Kind of a quiet day for me. It would be handy to see the Plausibility Meter reading 0% so we could skip that BS entirely and never have to see it.