Suggested Improvements to Facebook Tagging


In this age of facial recognition, one should be able to accurately tag their friends in a photo of a crowd of people.

Facebook allows you to use a crosshair to pin point the spot where you want attention focused. You can then label the point with a tag (a name of your Facebook friends or any name you like). When you hover over the tagged name, your spot is delineated by an empty white-outlined box which is about a square inch in size. Problem is, this can fit several identifiable people or objects.

I can understand our GPS navigators being deliberately off by a couple of houses, probably for privacy reasons, but I don't get the impression that privacy is of major concern to Facebook where photo tagging is concerned.

Yes, Facebook has photo recognition software which they use in suggesting your name to others when they upload pictures that feature your likeness (you may want to disable this feature in your privacy settings). Yet, even their software would have a hard time identifying people in a crowd...especially if they have their backs turned or something. If I am allowed to tag up to 50 people, it would be nice to be able to direct them to various specific points in the picture. Hence, suggestion number one:

1. Facebook should include the crosshair in the square inch box.

In fairness to Facebook, when you hover over the actual image, a black rectangular speech balloon points to a spot at least a quarter of an inch south of the intended point...this is not accurate enough. Apart from identifying people and marketing, the tagging feature could serve other useful functions like education (labeling technical diagrams).

Ok, ok, I agree that this half-decade-old request may be considered too specialized, but what about my second suggestion?:

2. Differentiate between tagging a picture of someone and tagging simply to draw someone's attention to a picture. This can be done by allowing tagging outside the picture frame or allowing a different kind of tag altogether.

This way when Facebook decides to verify my identity by asking me to identify my friends, they won't use pictures of handbags, funny cartoons, and invitation cards!

Comments

Post a Comment

Thanks for stopping by.
Please leave a comment...let's hear what's on your mind :)

Popular posts from this blog

My Alien Abduction Survival Story

The ETs now have me where they've wanted me...at my wits' end and on my knees, completely at their mercy. They have my attention alright, howbeit not undivided. My wife is dying in excruciating pain and it's all their doing. They'd implanted the alien pod that had been growing inside her and was now trying to claw its way out of her belly. Okay maybe it wasn't all their doing. If only I hadn't been so stupid to get us in such a compromising situation. The aliens should never have captured us in the first place. It should have been some poor unlucky slob in my place. I'm a trained soldier, my instincts have been honed to avoid scenarios like this. Funnily enough they'd treated us nicely. None of the lower gastrointestinal probing we hear about in those abduction stories. Just strange heavenly lights and strange heavenly sounds. It was like heaven for the relatively brief period we were there. We were grateful to have been spared. Not many make it back t
Read more

Suggested Improvement to Facebook "Like"

Image
Seriously, Facebook should stop abusing the word "Like". We've made our peace with their abuse of the word "Friend" but the "Like" thingy may be doing them some harm. Think about it. Imagine I find a page I want to participate in not because I like the page ("like" in the literal sense not the perverted Facebook sense) but because I want to provide an alternate viewpoint. The establishment could have the exact opposite of my values, or sell products I'm not happy with, and the best way to keep tabs on them, or offer my complaint would be to "Like" the page. Problem is I don't want to be caught dead 'liking' a page I don't...well...like. I know companies would probably want to limit the voice of the complaining customer, but some (the smart ones) will want to hear such customers so they can improve or at least know what their enemies are saying. This loss in important feedback and community activity might cost
Read more

Those Darned Calories

I’ll second (or third) that too rapid weight loss is not healthy. Actually history has shown that too rapid anything, more than less, is never healthy. That said, it's good to watch your caloric intake...but it will not be as easy as not eating. A faster healthier way to loose weight is to eat smaller but more regular meals (of course while adding a healthy dose of exercise...or rather, a dose of healthy exercise). Whatever you do, avoid bouts of starvation. Starvation simply tells your body that there isn't enough food to go round (famine even). The body then responds by slowing down the metabolism, and by storing whatever 'little' you ingest as fat…you know, for the ‘rainy’ day ahead. You’re better off boosting your metabolism by eating tiny meals say every 3 hours. What I do (ok try to do) is eat tiny meals and supplement with granola bars (yes I’ve acquired the taste) later, or eat my meals in two meals…half now half later. Avoid or limit the white killer foods like
Read more