Facebook’s “People You May Know” Knocking At User’s Mobile Doors

Facebook’s “People You May Know” Knocking At User’s Mobile Doors

April 26, 2011

Twitter user @JamesTratt posted the above screen-grab a short time ago and forwarded it on to us for investigation. It appears the official iPhone Facebook app might slowly be rolling out a mobile variant of the familiar desktop client’s “People You May Know” section. The new “feature” was questioned on Facebook’s Help Center this past Saturday, and, sadly, there seems to be no response or remedy in sight. Many users (myself and friends included) have yet to experience this annoyance on our iPhones, but that doesn’t mean it’s not coming. It may be a gradual implementation of something on Facebook’s back end, or it might be a sporadic part of April 20’s posted app revision (3.4.1). In either case, almost everyone will probably see it pop up before the week is out. People are definitely buzzing about the issue, and nobody seems pleased in the least. Most agree that mobile screen real estate is far too valuable to be used for network-promoting visual spam. If Facebook is hell-bent on employing this sort of tactic, they would do better presenting it as a timed, temporary pop-up or making it a regular settings option.
Still, it seems a little silly to get too upset. After all, connecting people is what Facebook does. Whether or not this particular method is an effective tool isn’t clear. The debate lies in the question: Is it really even necessary?
Have any of you seen this behavior within the mobile app? If so, let us know what you think in the comments below.

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