MVF, a hack created by Alex Taub and Michael Schonfeld, blew up last week, giving thousands of Twitter users the opportunity to indulge in who their most popular follower was. The Web app went viral and got tons of press, signaling just how important this sort of information can be to users, and perhaps signals that sites like Klout aren’t providing the right kind of data.
MVF for Twitter is so simple that there’s really no reason not to give it a try, which is likely the secret to its success. Now, the creators are back with a second tool, MVF for Facebook which controversially allows anyone to find out their most valuable Facebook friend based on a weighted combination of the total number of friends and subscribers.
From the creators:
Value is hard to define. We build this application to try and do that. We look at value as one would look at a commodity. The more scarce it is, the more valuable it is. This is what we had in mind when determining value. We also took into account popularity, for better or worse.
We tried to find a good balance of popularity and scarcity. It works at times, other times it doesn’t. We think it works more than it doesn’t. But you, the people, will be the judge. Feel free to email us by using the feedback button on the left. Please email us with suggestions, comments, or just curse us out because this stupid app was made by morons…
To use the tool, all you have to do is sign in via Facebook and you’ll automatically get your MVF. You can find out your top 5 MVFs if you decide to share your #1.
At the moment, this is just a fun hack, but there’s serious potential for this kind of analytic data to provide a lot of value for companies and individuals. Also, it’s just plain cool…so check it out!
➤ MVF for Twitter & Facebook
Hey guys - Michael here.. I'm the developer behind MVF. I wanted to let you guys know we fixed a bunch of OAuth error this morning, and you shouldn't be getting them anymore, regardless of whether or not you allow us to share on your behalf.
tamar - In terms of how things are calculated, I wanted to mention the subscribers are given a considerably lower weight than friends, merely because ties to subscribers aren't as viable as they are to friends. That said, however, we are constantly tweaking our algo, and I really appreciate you posting that example of 5k + 125 vs 2.2k + 125k... I promise the results will get better soon!
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Likeenochja I'd love to look into your results, and figure out what went wrong there. Could you tell me your Facebook username? You could also email it to me at michael[at]mvfapp[dot]com... Thanks!
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LikeThis is no hack at all.. there are lots of apps on Facebook which look at more and better signals to define the most valuable friend..
This app doesn't make any sense at all and is absolutely not cool. They only look at the number of friends one has and rank them from #1 - #5 as your most valuable friends.. Something they didn't think about; a lot of people tend to hide their friend lists these days, so they don't have access to the only information they use, which makes it impossible to do even this simple thing right..
Conclusion this app is ****
Makes me wonder, how much did they pay to get this article here? Is the author related to one of the guys behind MVF? Or does the author have a bad day and simply forgot to do some research?
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LikeMartin Joosse It is a hack... as in like what would be created at a hackathon. Clearly, Facebook's servers weren't breached.
It's a simple and free Web app and it does what it says it does. Were you expecting an advanced algorithm that somehow analyzed the personal worth of each person based on how much they contributed to society?
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LikeThe MVF for Facebook shows up some guy's name whom I've never heard of and as tamar mentioned...it seems to have specific logic set to it...I think this is again one of those tactics to steal user information.
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LikeWhy is everything a "hack" nowadays?
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LikeMaxim Gladines Have you been to a hackathon before? This app was created in the same spirt, where it isn't a full app launch, but a fun idea that was thrown together for the sake of making cool shit.
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LikeA little annoying that if you "Skip" the "Post to Facebook as Me" feature, it throws an OAuth exception, but if you allow it, it doesn't.
That's kind of disingenuous.
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LikeAlso, my MVF seems to be based on the number of friends he has. He has 5000+ friends and 125 subscribers. My other friends have half as many friends but tons more subscribers. Looks like only one element is factored into this algorithm.
That was fun, but this app is gone now.
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Liketamar One of the creators explained to me that the # of subscribers is considered, but not weighted equally to the # of friends.
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LikeHarrison Weber Yeah, figured that was it - but when you have 5,029 friends and 125 subscribers, you'd think the one with 2,257 friends and 125k subscribers would be weighted more heavily.
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LikeConversation from Facebook
Surely the measure is subjective and if you don't already know, they are probably not friends......anyway most valuable for what? I know it's just a bit of fun ^_^
Graham Hancock is my MVF!!!!
Look on your friends list, the guy with the most friends will be your mvf.