Facebook And Birthdays

Because of Facebook I’ve heard from lots of friends and viewers in Connecticut. Facebook’s great reminding you of upcoming events. It fails pretty badly when it comes to managing that influx!

4  Geoff Fox

Let me back up for a moment. Most people assume their friends stream by on the Facebook timeline. Yes… but!

I stopped using my “Fox on Fox” page because Facebook was only showing my posts to 5-10% of the people who liked me. Some meteorologists and TV stations who steered viewers to Facebook pages now find Watches and Warnings are poorly distributed.

facebook-logoFacebook assigns values to your friendships. If Facebook thinks two people really don’t engage it lowers the frequency they see each other. Overall, it probably works fine. That doesn’t mean it’s great every time. And, since the users are not Facebook’s real customers (advertisers are), our problems aren’t that important.

For my birthday I’ve gotten hundreds of greetings. Counting private messages, wall posts and folks who weren’t allowed to post (Facebook rules), but wished me Happy Birthday in a reply to something else, the total will be north of 500 and south of 1,000 by Sunday. I want to acknowledge each one.

If you think they’d be displayed on my wall one-after-another you’d be wrong. Only the last half dozen or so appear. Beyond that you have to navigate to a page of links. Then you open a page for each in order to reply. Finally, you navigate back to the page of links.

It takes three times longer than it should!

So, I’m working on it. It might take a while. Worth it. I am very appreciative of each one of you who has taken the time to write.

I miss you too.

11 thoughts on “Facebook And Birthdays”

  1. Geoff, FB allows us to make lists (at least for personal pages).

    What I’ve done is put people whose posts I never want to miss into assorted lists. So I have “family” but it only has 3 people in it. And I have lists for former students and former colleagues. etc etc etc

    I get your updates via somethign FB calls pages and public figures (as opposed to page updates, another category they create).

    I manage to catch most of what matters to me that way 🙂

  2. Cue music…Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday to you…!!! Happy Birthday from Fort Mill, SC, originally from CT.

  3. A Very Happy Birthday to you Geoff!!!!
    And, you are really missed by us in CT. It’ll never be the same.
    But, that being said, I know we all wish you and Mrs. Geoff the very best.

    Judi

  4. Happy Birthday Geoff. Hope it was great. Mine was Thursday and spent it at work so my manager could go on vacation that’s life in the retail world I guess

  5. I was one who needs to reply on a comment. I am only allowed to follow you not befriend you. You must have many friends 🙂

  6. I don’t do FB—yet. Not sure if they’ll let me on, as I am behind on updating Explorer and some other programs.
    But anyway—-Happy Birthday, from Naugatuck.
    I so enjoy your blog and pictures—almost as good as seeing you on TV—and you share all of your new gadgets with us. Have you got that ‘Drone’ flying yet???? People on the space needle didn’t look scared—-but if I see one flying down my street, it might be disconcerting.
    Happy Birthday and many, many more to come—Enjoy each day.

  7. Happy Birthday Geoff from Norwich, CT! Enjoy your special day! Luv reading your posts, especially those about Doppler. Your weather wisdom is sorely missed here.

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