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How are the 8 friends pictures chosen in your Facebook profile Timeline?

How does facebook chose the top 8 friends photos in your Facebook profile in the upper right corner of Timeline? What determines the reasoning behind why these 8 friends are selected to show up in this friends box on your profile?


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move on! get a life. its unanswerable since you can't test out variables like people who have visited your profile... i can't believe how long this thread is. it was briefly an interesting question but enoughs enough!
(but, for the record, i haven't seen anyone reference that it may by relational to how often a person is on facebook... if someone viewed your profile 4 years ago but hasn't been on facebook for 4 years, it could still count. someone who visits your profile once a week along with every other friend they have... not so important)
Jan 4th, 2013 at 5:34 AM
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I think Justumguy was on the right track with his idea about an algorithm that thinks like we do. If someone is thinking of you (viewing your profile), you may be thinking of them as well. Having the person just a simple click away gives you an convenient chance to connect. Also, the algorithm is designed to keep you on the site, and to click on more pages, which provides more opportunities for the site to earn money from advertising. So, if the algorithm can predict what we will likely do, they can make it easy for us to view more profiles, pages and ads on the site.

The top 6 box on timeline is what is interesting to me. The people I see there seem to be the ones that are more likely to view my profile. Once again, an ex that seldom posts and that I don't visit is usually there. Also, another friend that has tagged me in a lot of pictures shows up there just as often.
Jan 7th, 2013 at 12:28 AM
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I think I finally got it. I decided to do a little experiment and made a fake account. I visited my profile like 2-3 times. Immediately, I signed on to my account and lo and behold my fake friend showed up in the little box of 6 friends and kept doing so 2-3x in a row after refreshing. Notice he wasn't on the big box yet but then the next day, he showed up in the big box of 8 friends and stayed there for 3 days or so. So, maybe not all of them but some of them are definitely very recent visitors or stalkers to your profile page! I repeated the experiment with another fake account and it happened again!
Jan 23rd, 2013 at 4:27 AM
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what i have noticed from a little experiment. I put some statuses which make sence only for two friends of mine. and they immidiately appeared in 6-box but before they were not there. no any interraction with both of them i didnt have the last 2-3 month. so they definetely visited my profile. about 8box - i am not sure. but when i see somebody hanging for a long time in the top left corner it confuses a lot.
Jan 31st, 2013 at 7:28 PM
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also what i can not explain: one of my friends - is nearly always on in 6-box but NEVER was in 8box. we never interracted and we dont even know good each other but she is in 6box. i wish she appeared in 8box but she doesnt!
Jan 31st, 2013 at 8:34 PM
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There is this one woman that i always check out her photos and facebook. I look at her profile A LOT. I then checked my profile and she was on my 8 friend list box but the last one. The thing is i then refreshed my facebook page multiple times and i noticed she was on the 8th one... the bottom left all 8 times. However... the other 7 ppl i have on there... they were all the same when i refreshed my facebook... HOWEVER... they change every single time in space. Such as if its like this

H is who i stalk. The other 7 ppl... one of them is family. Two others are close friends. However... the other
4- 5... i never spoke to them in a while. One of them i didn't evne know so well but all i did was add his request when he sent it to me.

a, b, c, d
e, f, g, h

It would then go

c, f, e, g,
d, b, a, h


But basically H... the person who i stalk was always in that same spot!

I read someone mentoined that the person on the 7th and 8th profile could be the ones you are stalking or the one that is stalking you? Is that true?

The thing is when i look at my top 6 friends and refresh them... they would change over and over again. It was no where like the 8 friend list. Thoughts on this? My crush would also appear on it but the thing is almost everyone on my facebook list was appearing on it.

Also, when i clicked on her profile and looked at her friend list. I noticed that her top 8 friends were always the same ppl when i refreshed it multiple times. However her friend list on top 6 did change everytime. The only difference was we have a mutal friend and that person always appeared as number 1.

I"m curious but does anyone else notice the person they stalk and look a lot on facebook always appear like on a certain spot in their 8 friend list like mine?
Feb 2nd, 2013 at 12:05 AM
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Okay so i just logged into my account again and my crush is longer there anymore in the top 8 friend anymore. Does anyone know why this is the case?
Feb 2nd, 2013 at 12:40 AM
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My 8 friends looks like this:
My cousin - I view her profile maybe 1-2 times in one month and out of 10 things she post, I like/comment 1 thing. Never sent her a PM. Only likes/comments 1 thing out of 10.
An old teacher of mine - I like or comment her pictures/statuses about 5-6 times out of 10. Sent her some PM's for 6 months ago. She likes/comment maybe 2-3 out of 10 things I post.
A friend - We like/comment 2-3 things out of 10.
An old crush - We barely like each others things. Last time he liked something I posted was 1-2 years ago. I like his pictures like 3-4 times out of 10
My sister - we tag each other almost whenever we're out and we comment or like each others things 8 out of 10 times.
My best friend - we like/comment each others things most of the time and we write to each other on the chat everyday.
My crush - Most of the times when I update or view my profile he's the 7th person out of 8. He likes my statuses and pics sometimes and for the last week he liked almost all of my statuses, I think it's 2 statuses he hasn't liked out of maybe 8. I've been liking almost all of the pictures and statuses he been posting for the past 4-5 month. Never sent a PM to him.
A close friend - We ALWAYS like each others pictures and statuses. It's been a couple of months since we wrote to each other on the chat though. And he's always the 8th person/bottom right.

I know nothing's random when it comes to computers (or Facebook) but I seriously can't figure out why it's always this 8 people who shows.
Feb 21st, 2013 at 11:38 PM
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I've always wondered about the significance of both the 6 and 8 friend boxes. So I decided to try a little experiment as well. My son and I each have FB pages so last night I signed on to my page and started looking at his page multiple times. I then asked him to sign onto his to see if my profile pic appeared in his 8 friends box. It did. It showed up as the second pic in the top row. I asked him to refresh the page 3 times and each time my pic was there but in different spot.

Now mind you, he and I do not interact on FB. No likes, comments on each other's pages, etc. When I view his page as myself and view my page as him the top 6 reveal pics of our mutual friends. Some I don't interact with (comments, views, etc.) and vice versa. And looking at my son's FB page during my experiment I could tell that he barely accesses his account. There wasn't a lot of activity going on.

To take the experiment a step further, I unfriended my ex about a week ago. I've looked at his page a few times via the search engine but for my experiment since they're still FB friends, I accessed his page a few times via my son's page on my mobile phone earlier in the day. When I got home and looked at my son's page via my laptop there was my ex in the 8 box. I refreshed a few times, his pic rotated then disappeared. When I looked at my ex's page a few times via my son's on the laptop, my ex didn't show up on the 8 box.

As for my own page the 6 box shows 3 or maybe 4 people I interact with, 2 or 3 I don't. The 8 box will show the same 7 people I've interacted with regularly(mutual comments, likes, etc.) with one guy who I barely interact with always popping up in the 8th box, occasionally shifting position when I refresh. I suspect that he looks at my page constantly because every now and then I'll get a compliment from him via message on my FB mobile message app. Then hours later, 7 of the pics will change to people I have interacted with on occasion but haven't done so in days or weeks. The same guy is the 8th person. People I don't interact with at all are never displayed in the box.

So, I believe that the 8 friends box shows:

A) those who have recently or consistently viewed your profile and those who you have viewed via mobile. I am almost certain that FB is keeping track of mobile views as well.
B)those who you have consistent interaction with
C) those who you have occasionally interacted with. I suspect that's done just as a reminder to let you know that you haven't communicated in awhile.

The 6 friend box is random. A combo of those you communicate and those you do not communicate with.
Feb 26th, 2013 at 2:19 PM
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Hi all, the people in my box have stopped rotating how do I fix this?
Mar 17th, 2013 at 7:25 AM
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My best friend is stuck in my 8th spot. (For the very first time and the only one my close friend list.) The other folks are rotating around.
Mar 17th, 2013 at 7:44 AM
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I noticed the top 9 (new fb layout) on my fb profile are all the people that show up on Find Friends as a mutual friend.
Apr 18th, 2013 at 3:41 AM
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My question which I guess is totally original is: Of the 8 or 6 or whatever friends pictures I see when I look at my homepage, how do I delete one specific photo? I have tried putting the person in a different group and even tried moving the photo but nothing works. Basically, what if you just don't feel like looking at the person's face every time you log into Facebook.
Jul 20th, 2013 at 9:47 PM
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In my opinion the top 9 are the people who have made recent posts on their profile or it can be you viewed their profile.. Because there is a guy on there that he made a post and I viewed his profile and now he is coming up on the top 3 plus a crush that I viewed his profile constantly and he showed up on the top 2 and the rest of the top friends I either viewed their profile or they make many posts plus I recently interacted with them.
Aug 6th, 2013 at 12:01 AM
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Hey guys and gals long time no post lol but anyway, one thing that ive recently found out ( you all might already know about this feature.) but just incase If you go to your privacy settings then timeline and tagging in the left hand colomn menu you will see a list of questions in the center of the screen. One question is ( Who can see things on my timeline? ) and right next to it is the option to see your profile as another person would see it. You can type in a persons name in the black bar on top after you click on the view as button and you can see how that person or your crush sees your profile. Maybe you can do an experiment to possible find out if someone is looking at your profile or come to more conclusions as to how the 9 box is ordered.
Sep 17th, 2013 at 8:14 PM
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Would rather not have seen this.. Boyfriend has his ex and a couple of random beautiful women who I have never heard of showing up continually on his :\
Sep 19th, 2013 at 3:45 PM
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I sincerely hope that it is the people that view your profile a lot because my crush remains there among my other friends. Sometimes I view his, but not extensively so I hope that this is because of him.
Wish me luck xo
Mar 20th, 2014 at 8:01 PM
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Who are the people that is in a friends window on their fb page?????
Jul 25th, 2015 at 3:16 PM
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When sending a message on Facebook does your profile picture always come up along side the message.Its just someone messages me and I don't think it's them as it's someone else's picture
Sep 14th, 2016 at 1:57 PM
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I noticed on my Facebook page, 2 of the 6 people I just became friends with ( about 3 days ago.)
The other four people are in the same Facebook group as me.
Apr 25th, 2019 at 10:09 AM
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