facebook 8 displayed friends question?

[Boofgeg]

on facebook timeline with the 8 displayed friends on the page, has anybody else noticed that now it is impossible to see yourself on other people's 8 displayed friends? on the far right, bottom friend thumbnail, a mutual friend instead will always appear in your place, and unlike the other names, you always know it is really you (just displaying a mutual friends thumbnail in your place, but everybody else who views the page will see you instead) because it never moves from the bottom right position at any time, while the other thumbnails shuffle around as you refresh the page. why did facebook make this change?

Also, why are the names that are displayed in the 8 displayed friends for *you* on your own profile different from the names seen by everybody else? has anybody else noticed this?

[Amanda]

The 8 friends shown in your Facebook Timeline friends box are determined by a number of factors, but mostly they will show friends that you appear to be closer with from interactions on facebook. These 8 friends may be your closest friends, family members, crushes, facebook stalkers or just friends that have recently viewed your profile. While the 8 friends box will still show some random friends every so often as well, however most of the time the larger percentage of friends will be those who you are seen to connected closer with as determined by Facebook’s friend algorithm.

A number of factors seem to contribute to the reasons why you will see certain friends photos show up more often in your 8 Friends picture box on your own profile. These factors include:

- Interactions on facebook (recently and over time). Recent interactions play a large role, especially if someone has recently viewed your profile page.
- Profile views (they've viewed your profile and/ or you've viewed their profile - Total amount of views when compared to other friends profiles viewed)
- Photos that you've been tagged in (or have tagged your friends).
- Wall posts
- Likes
- Comments (on your posts or comments you’ve made on your friends wall posts or pictures)
- Photos viewed (they've viewed your pictures, and/or you've viewed theirs)
- Online - Friends who are currently Online (or recently been online for Random people that might show up)
- Chat - Facebook IM chat messages between each other
- Private messages sent between friends
- Any "mutual interactions" between yourself and your friends will likely play a bigger role in determining who your “closer” 8 friends may be.
- If you've added friends to your "Close Friends" group, typically at least 2 of these "Close" friends will be shown in the 8 friends box.

Facebook most likely takes into account who’s friends profiles (and photos) you view and who your friends view. And then compares these amount of profile views in relation to all your friends (or in the case of your friends, what other of their friends profiles and photos they view more often). So if facebook notices that one of your friends views your profile more often than their other friends profiles, then more than likely this friends picture will start showing up in your friends box, especially if you view their profile.

While these 8 friends pics do seem to change frequently, and still have around 2 random friends showing up to mix things up, overall your friends who show up in your 8 friends list box, are much more likely to be "connected" to you on some level, as compared to your other friends who don't show up very often.

Keep in mind, because everyone has different friends, different amounts of friends and different types of relationships, everyone will have a slightly different reasoning as to why certain people show up in the 8 friends box. And facebook is always tweaking it’s code that determines these factors, so the reason why certain friends show up may always be changing slightly.

But at the end of the day there's definitely a number of key factors that go into Facebook’s top secret friend algorithm that determine why certain friends photos show up in the 8 friends box at the top your Facebook Timeline profile. And more than likely it’s because they are your best friends, closest friends, family members, boyfriend, girlfriend, wife, husband, your facebook crushes, facebook stalkers, and/or friends that have recently interacted with you or checked out your profile.