Facebook has a problem with context and it's been very noticeable and well voiced by Danah Boyd over at FutureLab in a post titled loss of context for me on Facebook.

"…lost control over my Facebook tonight. Or rather, the context got destroyed. For months, I've been ignoring most friend requests. Tonight, I gave up and accepted most of them. I have been facing the precise dilemma that I write about in my articles: what constitutes a "friend"? Where's the line?"

What constitutes a "friend"?   Probably, on Facebook, everyone ends up being your friend and every other Social Network out there that a friend is connected to you end up joining …..and is that good?   I don't think so.

When you make friends, don't you value the one's who give your their friendship over time over those who just "give you" their friendship with no effort (hence, often, no value).   I'm not talking about easy social interaction – I'm talking about who your "friends" really are.

What I'd like to see with Facebook, if I were to use it as the Social Network for my Web Analytics Association Social Media Committee, instead of my invite only Ning Social Network, is a degree of difficulty in making friends.  That's right … I want Friendship to be "earned".

So here's what I propose – just that …..Friendship in a Social Network be earned, that in order to be a friend of someone else, that person needs to set up some kind of task, request, goal, filtering system, via the Social Network (which will track if it is fulfilled) that someone who wants to be the friend of that person must fulfill first, in order to be ..say…a first level friend.  

You could set levels of Friendship from ….say ….1-5 with the first level, outer rung, being everyone who would just ask you to be friends (what you have now) and then you'd have something like this:

• First Rung of Friendship = everyone asking to be your friend
• Second Rung of Friendship = someone who has fulfilled task "A" that you have set as you minimum requirement for Friendship at the Second Rung
• Third Rung of Friendship = someone who has fulfilled task "A" and task "B" and has been a friend for at least 1 month.
• Fourth Rung of Friendship = someone who has fulfilled task "A", "B", "C" and been a friend for at least 2 months
• Fifth Rung of Friendship = someone who has fulfilled tasks "A", "B", "C", "D" and been your friend for at least 6 months.

The 5th level of Friendship would be your most "trusted" friends in Facebook – you could even have Widgets that display your level of Friendship and that could connote value depending on who your friends with and at what Rung of Friendship your at with that person.

What things people see about the other person, the access level, so to speak, is moderated by what level of "Friendship" your at with the person (and people can revoke those levels manually if they have a fight or disagreement, I know someone is going to ask that question so I'll answer it myself).

I think that's what Facebook needs to evolve to in order to keep itself as the Social Network that people are going to want to use next  year – otherwise most will burn out of the easy friendship and lack of "focus" that Facebook provides.

And frankly, some of my committee members are asking me to move my private white label social network for the Social Media Committee from Ning to Facebook, but I'm not all that eager to do so for the very reason that Danah Boyd in loss of context for me on Facebook cites, the lack of focus.

For now, I'd rather leave the WAA Social Media Network on Ning then stick it on Facebook because, at least, I don't have everyone in the world asking to be every one else's friend…which is..after all, not what we really need or want anyway.

I say the answer for Facebook is "Rungs of Friendship.