Love it or hate it (or hate to love it), Facebook still reigns as queen cockroach of all online social networks. At press time, the networking giant had proposed a radical new interface – one with tabbed pages to separate loathsome applications from your profile. But considering its history of making sudden changes with a ‘put up or shut up’ attitude, I’m a little nervous. What really bugs me is its tendency to cook up new features that are obviously invasive and get scrapped within minutes (yes, minutes) of being introduced.

Let’s start with the ‘People You May Know’ box on the Facebook homepage, where users face thumbnails of people they might possibly know, with the option of adding them as friends. These blasts-from- the-past range from irritating ex-schoolmates to kleptomaniac ex-housemates. Yes, I ‘May Know’ these people, but frankly, I wish I didn’t. Public enemy No 1 was a girl who added me with this note: ‘Hi! Your name is so familiar, but I can’t remember your face. I know we went to school together. Do you have an old photo you could send me?’

In May, Facebook unleashed a horrifying addition to its search box – a drop-down list of the five people you searched for the most. Naturally, panic ensued and the list vanished half an hour after gossip site Gawker.com pounced on it, prompting immediate damage control. Facebook’s statement read: ‘The five friends…are populated based on people whom we think you’d be most interested in…we attempt to make an educated guess as to who it is you’re looking for.’ Was this PR-speak or the truth? We’ll never know.

The bottom line is, I don’t want Facebook hypothesising on whom I’m interested in or might search for. Radar magazine did a mini-survey to determine who these five special people were. The top three results? Acquaintances, bosom buddies and ex-shag. Apparently we love to stalk folks we barely know, followed by legit pals and drunken mistakes.

On second thought, maybe we deserve to be exploited.

Ironic footnote:
Download our Time Out Singapore Facebook Application – it allows you to invite your friends to any event in Singapore this week AND shows you which ones are the most popular.