Any programmers here know how the coding works for selecting the friends that come up on your profile? Or anyone that knows for sure. Is it totally random?? Most of the friends that come up on mine are who i think are most likely to look at my profile, out of the 800+ friends most who i dont even talk to, that would be a pretty big statistical coincidence.

Would be awesome if we could choose "top friends" like myspace/bebo etc

You would have to record data / make assumptions to know how the friends are worked out. Wouldn't take to long.... Just isn't worth the effort !. My guess is that it would be the amount of correspondence with those people, but this is a extremely uneducated guess and i wouldn't bet on it.

As far as I'm aware it comes down to interactions. It'll be the people that you publicly interact with the most via wallposts, comments and likes. It's probably not completely controllable by just you, it'll work both ways.

My best guess is a point system, for every like, comment and wall post there will be x points for that interaction. The points you and any friend you have would then be totalled up to give a point score to the friendship.

So the calculation is probably something like: [Your interactions] + [Friends interactions] = Strength of friendship.

So the strongest fb friendships you have probably sit on your profile, it looks like there's no order to the friends that appear there though and occasionally a couple will change upon refreshes. Facebook probably builds a list slightly larger than the number of slots available and randomises the positioning.

/quick guess

From the facebook FAQ:

"The left column of your profile may display two types of friend lists: Friends By default, a changing selection of friends always appears under the "Friends" heading in the left column of your profile. The selection includes many friends who you publicly interact with the most. Examples of public interactions include Wall posts, comments and mutually attended events Facebook will never show friends based on whose profiles you choose to view or who you interact with over messages and chat. Feature specific friends or groups In addition to your general list of friends, you can choose to feature specific friends (e.g., best friends, roommates or coworkers) or groups to which you belong. Learn how to do this here. /help/?faq=19427"

You're welcome

Brilliant, I was right then. Good find, I can never find anything in the ridiculously convoluted facebook faq.

basicaly superstar seen some girl he fancies here, and wants to know if it has a correlation to whether she looks at him alot!!

So it's Real Life, as opposed to let's pretend.