Facebook Testing Updated Friend Requests Interface to Prompt More Friending
Facebook slightly altered its friends request page interface recently: once you add somebody as a friend, Facebook will recommend that you add up to 4 of their friends. This is essentially just the long-standing friend suggestions interface but in another part of the site.
The company continually experiments with new ways of connecting people, because the more people are connected to others they care about, the more valuable Facebook is. In another example, it promoted its friend finder feature last month in a top toolbar on users’ home pages. Although the in-house ad was new, that feature has also been around for years, lets users import contact lists from email, IM and other services, then find and friend those contacts on Facebook.
The new suggestions interface is still in testing, the company says, although it appears to already be live for a large number of users. “We’ve started experimenting with ways to make these tools even more accessible and easy to use,” a spokesperson tells ReadWriteWeb, meaning that the two most recent tests are part of a bigger push.
Facebook wants to stimulate its increase the number of connections between people on the site. Because these connections are real, they reinforce a user’s authentic identity in Facebook — accompanied by real-world information which can be easily parlayed into ad revenue.
[Screenshot via ReadWriteWeb]
