I’m surprised that the issue of cell phone users with recycled phone numbers being inundated with text messages sent from the Facebook website has only just recently surfaced. I can vividly remember when Facebook launched its new profile text message updating feature because I had a couple of friends who were all over it. Every so often (more like every half an hour), someone’s phone would beep or ring, notifying them of the new wall post by Jane or that Bob just had poked him. It seemed like a good idea at first to have Facebook readily available no matter where you were (and I guess it still is if you’re into that), but only if you’re keeping up with your account. Knowing the nature of young internet users, I had a feeling that this text messaging service would get out of hand. Why? Well, there are many reasons:
- Facebook users LOVE to write on each other’s wall and update their profiles (almost obsessively)
- There are approximately 60 million Facebook users
- It’s always fun to try out a new feature
When you have millions of teenager wall-posting fiends constantly making edits to their own profiles, as well as their friends’, at all hours of the day (I’m guessing peak hours would be anywhere from 4 PM – 2 AM), imagine how many text messages are being sent out in a day? week? a month? That’s a lot of texts. I don’t know what percentage of Facebook users actually have their online account and phone synced, regardless, a lot of texts are flying out. 1% of the 60 million users is even a pretty big number.
It’s good to know that Facebook will be regulating and monitoring their phone number database a little more closely now. It would really be annoying to receive random Facebook updates about people you don’t know and then NOT have the ability to make them stop. Not sure if this is possible, but it would be neat if the Facebook website could detect a phone number being recycled and when it does, have the messaging feature automatically disable. There are other methods I’m sure, but those are my two cents.
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