Comments on: Facebook could learn a thing or two

The social network does quite a bit, but it doesn't do everything its competitors' services offer. Don Reisinger explores its major omissions.

[Akiba]

"What's so bad about designing your own profile page? Facebook's policy of forcing every user into a single profile design befuddles me. Sure, some MySpace pages are gaudy and downright ugly, but that doesn't mean users shouldn't be allowed to express themselves in their profiles."

This is one of the reasons I moved to Facebook. I got tired of looking at everyone's ugly unreadable pages. The number of people who use the same or similar color text as their background is astonishing. It wasn't just about bad looks either. You had pages where nothing worked, such as buttons, links and text boxes, and I'm not talking about users who disabled it on purpose. When people get to customize the design of their own pages it creates a bad user experience, in fact any attempt at a decent UI design is completely lost in places like myspace. Not that Myspace has a decent UI in the first place. If this is what people want, they don't need Facebook, they have Myspace or they can get their own free web hosting and put all the garbage they want on their website.

[testclipper]

I'm not sure why so many come to the quick defense of facebook.... besides being a single design, it's a poor design that forces small, twitter-like correspondence and very little else. most correspondence comes in the form of commenting on status and writing on someone's wall. I've rarely seen any blog posts, nor any statement exceeding 1 paragraph in length.

I get the distinct feeling that this is the hallmark of a new, younger generation (post-genx). Short, disjointed thoughts, no actual physical engagement, brief, inarticulate and poorly spelt. Insincere and common.. uniform, not much originality but generally dumb and happy.. most of my peers have migrated to facebook for more privacy and it's apparently deemed more 'adult'. I'm sure that DATELINE NBC had a lot to do with the mass exodus from Myspace. But on Myspace, I got articulate, deeply written blogs. While facebook has a more 'daily' nature to the correspondence and contact, I feel it's less interesting and less committed. I get a window into my friend's lives, and offer one for them into mine --- but I get very little sincere correspondence..

Facebook, I find, is the least 'social' of the applications.

Also, I dislike the washed out colors in the photos uploaded, the irritating invites to stupid applications (**** your pieces of flare), the unusable layout and the irrelevant advertising...
How do they even make money? The generation they're carrying spends 0 dollars online and will do anything within their power to get things for free.
And the second Facebook decides to charge for any service rendered, there audience will be on to the next place..... in 3 years, we'll look at facebook the way people look at friendster.... another stop along the road to the next best thing...

[dangtrade]

my facebook honeymoon period ended 6 months ago

Don (http://www.linkedin.com/pub/5/38/905)

[nivlazenemij]

Allowing SOME modifications made to the profile layout would be ok but to echo most of the responses the reason I don't really use MySpace was 1) The annoying over-the-top profiles and also 2) The constant friend requests from all sorts of freaks and weirdos. Simplicity is a virtue. I still use MySpace to check out new music but thankfully most of the musician profile pages are professionally done or not meant to give you a seizure.

wow. you are so out of touch. facebook is boring? did you say facebook is boring? i will downsize your face...

jk. but really, i'd hardly say that facebook is 'boring'. its made update after update for the last 4 years and is still updating...some were good, some were not so good. but 'change', nonetheless... but, friendster? really?? or myspace? *gasp. they've been around longer than facebook but still haven't found a way to bring aesthetics and function together where the product can actually deliver.

i don't really know what the point of having myspace or friendster is anymore. i think i might still have an account with both but i don't really know 'cus i haven't been to those sites in ages. they are REEEALLY boring because they have no focus. and thanks to critics like you, facebook is soon going to be like them. i hate those tabs and all those customizable sections...shame. shame on you.

[francissawyer]

How about a real log-in ID? Trying to use an E-mail address is ignorant and amateurish. If you're going to have users log into your site, you need to let them set up a legitimate ID. E-mail addresses are not suitable IDs because

1. We all have several of them by now.
2. They change over time with employment, ISP mergers, whatever.
3. Who knows which address he might have used to sign up for a random Web site months or years ago?

If you let people use a real ID, they can use the same one they use on other sites.

[strife_caecus]

I'm primarily a Facebook user though I do have accounts on Bebo, Blogger, Flickr, LinkedIn, LiveJournal, MySpace, Twitter and Xanga.

I agree with the folks above. Each service has a specialty and it should relatively remain that way. If anything, they should have ways to link with other social nets--which is actually happening slowly, but surely. A huge reason I like Facebook over MySpace is due to the clean, uniform interface. It's kinda sad when I have to utilize Greasemonkey scripts in Firefox to...
1. Disable someone's gaudy MySpace layout just so I can find the "Add Me" link.
2. Auto-disable most, if not all, music and videos when I load someone's MySpace page so I won't be blasted from the get-go.

However, I maintain my MySpace account because of the friends who are only found on MySpace.

In any case, I agree there some things that shouldn't be (radically) changed.

P.S. Here's a suggestion for MySpace...Give users the option of disabling all or certain elements of other users' custom MySpace pages. Otherwise, I'll just stick with my Greasemonkey scripts.

[socialnetworkingsoftware]

there are plenty of users to go around....facebook targets a different demographic than myspace and even more different a user base...linkedin.

[bonochromatic]

Wow, that was an amazing spot of ethically sound journalism. And wonderfully interspersed with other internal CNET articles as well! Also that was a spanking bit of sarcasm on my part just now.

Seriously, wake up! Allowing users to "customize their home page" has led to major security holes in Friendster's platform.

Bebo's great for allowing users to post their writing, but is that writing protected? If someone steals your writing off of Bebo, will Bebo help you to prove your copyright? I doubt it. And of course, the whole time you're reading someone else's work, Bebo's making money from advertising, etc, while the writer earns nothing.

There ARE some real competitors for Facebook out there, but Reisinger seems to have only googled tier-1 networks, which are all imitating each other anyway. He should roll his sleeves up, create a dummy email account somewhere, and sign up for some of the TRULY interesting Facebook competitors out there.

[maclanticocean]

I actually prefer the way Facebook looks and allows me to socialize with friends and family. I don't have to listen to everyone's favorite music. Or see dark pages with art or "self expression" I don't care to view. Why does my page have to have a different background or music to separate me from others or show my expressive side? I'm not on the internet to attract people to my page. These are my FRIENDS they know me personally. Not a bunch of people I can add that don't really know if I'm who I claim to be. My page is enough all by itself. I don't want to make some flashy background and I'm glad I don't have to. I'm happy to read only the important things that my friends wish for me to see and because of nothing distracting me I can see all their recent posts and not have to wonder if I go wall to wall with them if my ears will bleed from whatever their favorite choice in music is. Go Facebook! I'm glad I have a way to share that I don't have to mute each page I visit to keep my sanity.

[makehen]

Hell no...

The only reason I use Facebook and not Myspace or Friendster is *because* people can't turn their profile page into a spaztic mess.