Why Facebook only Shows 18% of Your Social Network
No doubt, having a less cluttered news feed is reason enough to show only so much content and with algorithms to detect importance and quality of posts, most of the visible content is adequate and/or useful. One could argue that is also reduces request/response server load as well for both the initial and AJAX-ed communication, but the magic still is deeper.
So, enough beating around the hypothesized bush that is your news feed magic. Think about this scenario: a friends sees something funny on Facebook and is talking to others about it, you overhear the conversation and ask 'What was it?' only to find it is a meme that apparently made people 'LOL'. You say 'Well, I didn't see it in my news feed...' and they respond 'Oh, well you should have seen it. It was hilarious!'. That scenario may not be the most common, but you get the point, different people see different things in their news feeds. This statement is pretty obvious because it is highly unlikely that you and this other person/people have the same friends and like the same pages. But considering that you know this person/people at some level you would have been at least close to finding that meme without much effort.
This is where the magic comes in: you then proceed to find the meme, you log in to Facebook, then check your news feed, then your friend's wall to see if they 'liked' it, and then you search for the meme's author/creator, but nonetheless you do eventually find the meme, have yourself a good ol' LOL and either logout or stay on your news feed awhile.
If you don't see the magic yet, consider this: would you have gone on Facebook again if you didn't have that reason of finding a meme to laugh at? The answer for most people busy with work/school/sleeping/going outside would say: 'Nope'. Yet that one single thing made you log in, jump around the Book of Face, and maybe stay a bit longer.
This is where the 18% of what you see makes its magic: the return of visitors for originally unseen content and the increase in user activity. If that meme was in your news feed in the first place you could have skipped the return to the site and gone about your day, but it wasn't and you were thrown out of the loop. That is why most people come back to Facebook: to get back in or stay in the loop. Also, keep in mind the attention span of someone who goes searching for a meme; on their breadcrumb trail to laughter they can be side-bared by another post, another meme, even an advertisement.
That disconnect Facebook gives you with only 18% is really a future reconnect and heightened chance of profitability. Magic, whether Facebook ever realized this or not.
So on its face(book), the 18% is a way to un-clutter your news feed, ease server load, and make the important information stand out, but dig deeper into the magic hat and you find the rabbit: that disconnected feeling that makes you reconnect (on Facebook). It's reasonable, then it's genius.
Once again: Magic!
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Thanks for reading,
Sincerely, Chris Andrejewski (dictated AND read)