I wrote recently about how Facebook could use some organization of how your "friends" are arranged. If we think about it, labeling all of our contacts the generic "friend" in Facebook isn’t a very accurate representation of the levels of relationships we have in our lives.

The other assumption that may be misaligned is the idea that I’d be interested in every single update from each one of those individuals. Instead of getting an avalanche of updates about every bit of information imaginable, what if you could categorize your updates?

Think about categorizing your updates into one of the following groups:

• family
• professional
• location
• random
• profile changes
• applications

Imagine when updating your status if you could quickly check the type of update it was. By default you’d post everything as "random", which would be similar to the "Uncategorized" post in a WordPress blog.

Family updates would include things like birth announcements, weddings or any other update about a member of your family or extended family. Professional updates would include changes in your career or job, or just an update related to your profession. Location would be any change to your physical location, which could consist of an actual move to a new town, or perhaps something as simple as an update using a geographic service like BrightKite.

Any automatic update generated from a Facebook application would automatically be categorized as such, making it very simple to not be annoyed by quizzes and other Facebook spam.

The other item that I’m surprised that doesn’t already exist in Facebook is an automatic notification when someone changes any piece of information in their Facebook profile. I new email address, or website, or other item. I think some of these items may generate updates, but it’s not well thought out as far as I’m concerned.

Image: Screenshot of Facebook account settings

Post from: EveryJoe

Needed Improvements on Facebook Notifications

What would really be helpful is to be reminded of something you needed to do when you were at a specific location, regardless of what time it was. For instance, the next time I’m around the corner of 71st and I-465, I need to pick up my dry cleaning.

This type of alarm system could be implemented with the technology we have already at our disposal. Phones with GPS in them, cars with GPS or handheld GPS receivers.

The other potential application would be to use the cellular network itself to set reminders. For instance, you could set a reminder on your phone to occur the next time it was within range and of the same cell tower you’re hitting at the moment for your signal.

The other perhaps useful feature there would be to have two phones, synch with each other. The next time they’re within range of each other, announce the reminder to both parties, or perhaps even immediately initiate a call between the two phones.  The application of this would be, “Next time I’m with Mark remind me that I owe him $20 for lunch last week.”

Image: flickr user brucebeh and Google Local map underlay

Post from: EveryJoe

Location Based Alarms and Notifications