Now, I went from just sitting on the fence about Facebook, to really liking it. They are at the top of their game. And not just because of the stuff they’re adding, but for me being a designer/developer for the web, they still are at the top of their game. You can ask any real designer on this planet, and see what they think about MySpace. It will be the same across the board. So what Facebook is doing behind the scenes is top notch, and keeps me that much more interested.

I’m still poking through some of the new applications that they just launched on Friday, but there seem to be a few cool ones, and a few worthless ones. I really l like the new Facebook Marketplace too, and if I ever need to sell something, that’s one of the first places I’m going.

What else seems to be interesting is that with all these new additions to the site, it’s like they are going into direct competition with others like Craigslist and MySpace. I’ll be interested in seeing the affect that it has, not only on a global scale, but even with people I know who use those religiously. I, personally, use Craigslist quite a bit, but if Marketplace steps it up more, I have no problem putting Craigslist in the back seat.

Facebook seems to understand not only the people that use the network, but the right way to go about developing these easy-to-use features too. I like that, and it makes using Facebook so much better. To give a quick (and a little nerdy) example, earlier this year, Facebook revamped the comments to work a little better. So I left a message on Kell’s wall saying…

Yeah this is pretty cool. It reduces clicks!

Yes, that is a nerdy web designer thing to say, but it’s true. They do stuff like that to make using the site easier, which a lot of people don’t mention because, well, you only complain when something sucks or is poorly designed.

So yeah, Facebook seems to be doing a whole lot of things right, and making too much damn money doing it. I like the direction that they’re heading in though, and Mr. CEO’s goals are set pretty high…

But Facebook is thinking big. In the parlance of its 23-year-old chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, the company is positioning itself as a “social operating system” for the Internet. It wants to sit at the center of its users’ online lives in the same way that Windows dominates their experience on a PC — while improving its own prospects for a lucrative acquisition or an eventual public offering. Source

I plan on using Facebook and other sites that I use in the new version of this site that is set to launch sometime before 2009.

Peace

As far as I can remember, Facebook didn’t have this kind of effect, as strong as MySpace. I never got into it to the point where I was on junkie status, so I never really went searching for people. I guess I didn’t care that much, however, it seems that in the past few months, the friend requests have been flying into the mailbox, from alot of high school people. So it makes me wonder, do these people stumble across my profile from someone else’s page, or are they actually thinking “let me search for John Phillips on this mofo.”

The other day, my best friend from ages, like, 2-15 sent me a friend request. I had randomly talked to him a few times this summer because he ran into my mom and she gave him my number. And it kind of threw me off when he sent me a friend request. I don’t exactly forget about some of these people, I just don’t think to look for them on these kind of sites. I’m kind of curious as how many of you actually go looking for people you knew back in the day, or just stumble across them?

It is cool that these kind of sites connect people though. I had a really close homie in 3rd grade who ended up moving to Washington D.C. and we lost touch, and last year he hit me up with a friend request, so it was real cool to catch up with him.  The sites have their benefits, and it’s downfalls.

peace

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