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The Roars Continue…
Published on 06/09/06
by John Phillips
Now when I first heard a few rants about the recent changes made to Facebook, I wasn’t going to say anything. Then I heard a few more, so I thought that it at least deserved a thought or two in the asides section. Then there was this roar of people who downright dispised the features and went on a rampage and started voicing their opinions, and holy shit, did people have some strong feelings towards it. Facebook still is just a website for fun right?
This is odd that all of this came up right after my last Sound Session of mentioning Facebook. So today my techy site mentioned about the Facebook users getting all upset about the new features, and there was just a huge debate (103 comments) about the whole issue and it’s quite interesting to see the different view points on the matter. Then I began to formulate my own thoughts, and just need to get the thoughts out asap. My first honest reaction to the new features, was that it was pretty cool, from a technical stand point. And I’ll get to that in a minute. Always trying to keep up with new features on as many sites as possible, this was just one that I liked, just because I know of the actual benefits can be with the technology used, which RSS if you want to look it up. So I did find a number of people that liked the feature, mainly because they are developers/designers/techies, which leaves at least 95% of the rest of the people non-designers, who it really matters for, and the majority of the people don’t give two shits about the feature, technically.
My second reaction after picking around at it, was that it was a little too (and more) stalkerish. I mean, I really didn’t need to know all of that info that came up at first glance, I don’t really care who wrote on who’s wall or who recently decline a group. But that’s just me, maybe people want all of that info. But I can say that for all the Facebook stalkers out there, you better thank Facebook for making your efforts that much easier. And peope act like Facebook all of a sudden became a stalker platform……it’s been like that since it came out!
So yes I think it’s cool technically, but I think it was used in the wrong fashion. Now I think that people will get used to it, if a few things happen. For one, make the feeds an option for users instead of force feeding it to them. One of the biggest ways to turn away users from a website is to change a site too much, and I think Mr. Zuckerberg tried a little too much at once. It also wasn’t a smart idea to release such a feature without testing it out on a number of users. I also think that in order for the users to learn it and get used it, they need to be able to choose what feeds they want and from who, in other words, let stalkers choose who they want to stalk. They don’t need to stalk everyone at once!
I honestly do think that if they tone that feature up a little bit, people will grow to like it, but that’s just my opinion. Now there was another group of people ranting about privacy issues…….REALLY?! So now that your, already public, information is more public, you’re going to bitch and moan. Seriously, why not poke around before you complain. You have the option of not showing all of your actions and such. It’s a simple process. Not only that, it’s barely easier with the feeds to get to the information that other people already had access to. These feeds are not giving away any information that is not already accessible.
What’s also insane, is that the “Students Against News Feeds” group currently has 359,394 members, 1645 discussions topics, and over 18,000 wall posts. Wow. I understand that people want to make a statement, but damn. And that’s just not enough, people also felt the need to start websites about the damn thing. I don’t even think this many young people got amped up when the war started. Am I the only one who thinks this is just bizarre?
I think Mr. Zuckerberg is a smart man, but I do think he made a mistake in releasing this feature in the wrong fashion. But, I think the Facebook team will get wise and touch this thing up. I also think that people will get used to it, but here’s also what I think; If they were to do nothing, and keep this feature the way it was, people would miss it in a few months. I bet around the same amount of people would probably complain to get the feature back on.
So what are my final thoughts? Either way, whether they take the feature off, or keep it on, I don’t really care too much. I’m not worried about my business being out there cause there isn’t much to show on that site. And if there was, I’d utilize the privacy features more, it’s that simple. What’s more interesting to me is to see how people react to this, whether they learn to use it more, and whether or not Facebook chooses to do something about the “apparent” problem. Zuckerberg already responded to the roars so I can only assume that his ass is scrambling around to figure out a solution. So yes, I like it technically, but am on the fence about it for Facebook, I’d have to see some changes in it to see if I’d like it for Facebook use.
I, like everyone else I’m sure, got all the invitations to the hate groups and such, and I just declined mine because I just like whatever. I just want to voice my opinion on my thoughts, and what I see going on with this. What’s weird, is that people like myself and other designers could use this as a case study for some web project or something. I hope none of your readers are that damn upset over this. If so, get over it, cause it’s not the end of the world, and if you hate it that much don’t utilize the privacy features, then just stop using Facebook!
So anyways, I think I got everything out, but if you’re bored and want to check out a debate going on head over to Tech Crunch, it’s pretty interesting to see the different perspectives, from users, to non-users, from young to old.
peace