FB is a networking/social website. They have a feature called friend suggestion. This feature offers several different interface, which allows users to friend other users they might want to connect with. Sometimes FB provides reasons/explanations why they suggest these friends, but sometimes they don't. In some sense this feature is useful, but to some users, well, like me, is not convincing. In academic it is called "intrusive". For example, sound is more intrusive than visual image. The GPS uses an intrusive way to remind drivers to turn right at the next intersection, but the users can definitely check the route details while waiting for the red light. When we apply this to FB friend suggestion, we can say that the intrusive action is more "effective", but not really "convincing". Take myself for instance, I had no idea why FB insisted to suggest a friend to me while there's almost no common friends between us.
On the other hand, if I actively find a user who have many common friends or interests, I would be really interested in knowing the reasons. For example, when I typed Jeff in the search box, the top 3 results are my Jeff friends, but I also found some other Jeffs who I might know; one is my ex-coworker (8 mutual friends) and the other 2 went to the same grad school with me. It's weird that FB didn't suggest those friends to me before, but it's also very awesome that I found these friend BY MYSELF :p. This really impressed me cuz it helps me connect to people I really want to network with.
I'm not saying the friend suggestion is not useful, actually I think it is an essential component on FB. But it's also really cool to throw the "control" back to users. I think FB is playing smart.
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