Facebook's redesign: Time to listen to users?
It wouldn't be at all surprising if Facebook's response to the bad vibes elicited its latest redesign were straight out of the 1970 comic war movie "Kelly's Heroes." To wit, we give you just one of the refrains from Donald Sutherland's tanker/proto-hippie character, Oddball:
How happy can CEO Mark Zuckerberg be with the griping by users over the latest Facebook redesign?
Why don't you knock it off with them negative waves...Why don't you say something righteous and hopeful for a change?
Hopeful, positive comments from Facebook users have been awfully hard to come by in recent days since the powerhouse social-networking site pushed out a redesign that seems inspired, at least in part, by the up-and-coming Twitter service. To pick just one newly voiced opinion from the company's "Vote on the new Facebook layout" app, which seems in keeping with consensus among the 624,665 comments there so far: "this one is really confusing... the home page look like every one is kinda takin to you!!!!! the previous one was really nice... would feel better if it was changed to the previous version..."
The negativity has continued into the weekend, fueled in part by a Valleywag item alleging that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg sent an e-mail to employees suggesting that it's folly for a disruptive company to listen to its customers.
Writes Dare Obasanjo, using the Valleywag post as a starting point:
When your application becomes an integral part of your customers lives and identities, it is almost expected that they protest any major changes to the user experience. The problem is that you may eventually become jaded about negative feedback because you assume that for the most part the protests are simply people's natural resistance to change...Somewhere along the line, it seems the folks at Facebook didn't internalize this fundamental difference in the social context that differentiates user to user relationships on Twitter versus Facebook. This to me is a big mistake.
But some folks are trying to find a silver lining.
Over at VentureBeat, Eric Eldon and MG Siegler offer an in-depth appraisal of the redesign, and lay out their share of criticism--including paying more attention to how users might might react:
From here, Facebook needs to figure out what might be worth bringing back from the old feed, like items about your friends making new friends, events, profile picture changes, etc.Perhaps most importantly though, Facebook needs to do a better job easing users into this redesign. If it wants people to do their own filtering using lists, it needs to make sure they know how. That's why above the feed filters, there should be two options: One to show you the news feed after the redesign, and one "legacy feed" below to show you just the core Facebook elements that were previously in the news feed prior to the redesign. In effect, this would be the "training" mechanism described above, and again, is critical before the real flood of information starts coming in through Facebook Connect.
Implementation issues aside, Eldon and Siegler write, "the overall idea behind it is the right one." Beyond that, they say:
Facebook should listen to its users in some regards - but if every company only listened to its users, there would be no innovation. If the changes made are ultimately for the better, as Facebook clearly believes, then it needs to suck it up and get through this growing pain. And so do its users.
High-profile blogger Robert Scoble definitely seems to be in the tough-love camp when it comes to users' gripes:
Anyway, all those who are saying the new design sucks should NOT be listened to. Yeah, I know a lot of people are going to get mad at me for saying that. After all, how can a blogger say to not listen to the masses? Easy: I've seen the advice the masses are giving and most of it isn't very good for Facebook's business interests...Zuckerberg is not listening to you because you don't get how Facebook is going to make billions.
We've reached out to the folks at Facebook for comment on the purported Zuckerberg missive and, just in general, for how they're reacting to users' boos. No response yet, but we'll let you know if we do hear anything back on this first springtime Sunday afternoon.
Update at 1:34 p.m PDT: Several readers have objected that this story makes it seem like everyone hates the Facebook redesign, which wasn't the intent. Facebook has 175 million users, a number that's vastly greater than the 600,000-plus comments on the company's "Vote on the new Facebook layout" application.
One person in the comments section below offers this positive assessment: "I actually find the new design more pleasing. It is more functional and manageable. I can select what I want to view instead of everything as a hodgepodge on one page. all they need now is the ability to make my feeds as rss and watch other walls as rss. It is a more advanced design. Probably best for advanced users."
Still, among those who've voiced their opinion on the redesign, the sentiment has largely been somewhere on the side of disappointment.
Jonathan Skillings is managing editor of CNET News, based in the Boston bureau. He's been with CNET since 2000, after a decade in tech journalism at the IDG News Service, PC Week, and an AS/400 magazine. He's also been a soldier and a schoolteacher. E-mail Jon. 
and Mr. "box-builder"..u maybe din't get 'kylebuttermore'.
Personally, I'm with you. I want the ability to filter out specific types of content without blocking the friend entirely from my feed. If they don't add that kind of control, Facebook is going to become a LOT less appealing to me to use and I'll be on that site a lot less often.
That'll translate to fewer views of their ads and fewer opportunities for them to try and monetize my time spent on Facebook in any way that they can. So they're going to lose out, not benefit, by not letting people customize their news feed content.
*Also* most branded pages (Public Profiles ) are hidden from the feed for all users by default. Given that a branded page is opt-in by default, it is stunning that FB made the decision to make these hidden. The brands who paid for advertising their pages should ask for a refund.
Yes, Facebook needs to keep their "users" around and even increase their numbers so that it can eventually find a way to monetize these "users" and the content / information they are willing to endow Facebook with. Thus, the whole concept that Facebook exists solely to keep these individuals happy is, in itself, a silly and even dangerous illusion.
Personally, I think it is simply absurd and naive how most Facebook "users" truly believe they can have their cake and eat it too... These "users" have a deep sense of entitlement which leads them to believe they have some kind of right to act like whiny, high-maintenance "customers" to whom Facebook should cater like a highly-paid butler. These "users" expect their every whim and fancy to be provided for, but wince at every attempt by Facebook to monetize them by, *gasp*, selling them and their personal information out like a product.
These "users" need to WAKE UP. They are not paying a single penny for the service, which has real-world costs and is profit-driven. If they want to be treated as "customers", they need to start being willing to pay like "customers" and then they may start making demands about features and privacy. Facebook has the business model it does because hundreds of millions of "users" think they can have their cake and eat it too.
Whether or not facebook's "users" are their "customers" or "products" as you attempt to put it, makes little difference. Facebook would be NOTHING without it's "products" as you like to call us. And now we've entered the usual, "How does a socail networking service make a profit" twilight zone.
Just remember before you go jumping down the throats of facebook users that without these users, facebook would not exist. And just as MySpace is losing out big time to facebook, so will facebook lose out to whatever the next big thing is (Twitter not withstanding) if they don't listen to their "products."
Firstly, the users may not be 'paying' in the sense of monetary payment, but, are certainly paying in terms of giving Facebook content. It may be payment in kind, but, it's still payment.
The truth is that the vast bulk of this will be stored, but, never used. That said, we live in a culture where people become famous - often simply for becoming famous. Big Brother, Pop Idol, Paris Hilton, Jade Goody. Who will be the faces 5 years from now? I don't know, and I seriously doubt that anyone else does eithor.
BUT - the chances that the faces 5 years from now will at least look for fame. The chances are that as complete unknows outside their circle of friends, they have a Facebook account. They are, as we speak blogging, posting photos of themselves and their friends on nights out, sometimes posting sexy pictures of themselves online.
Facebook is claiming rights to all this content. 5 years down the line it will have pictures and stories that it can make real money out of.
As well as that, Facebook users are also paying in kind by giving Facebook access to themselves for advertisers.
What Facebook is doing could have profound implications not only for Facebook itself and it's users, but, for the whole internet.
The reason for this is simple. Today's teens are web savvy and will have learned at least some HTML (and maybe CSS) at school. They have grown up with computers.
There are already scripts out there that are being used to hide parts of the new Faceebook homepage.
More importantly, there is Adblock Plus. Until very recent times, it has been used by people like myself, who strongly object to advertising and see it as a form of brainwashing. The sort of people who will make a point of switching over/putting the teletext on/make coffee when the TV ads come on, while most people will sit through them.
What is now happening is that an increasing number of people are adding Adblock Plus - not because they object to advertising, but, as a way of getting back at Facebook. Once this feature is added, most people will keep it forever.
There are protest groups where there are literally millions of people, where Adblock is being plugged. I would imagine that currently under 10% of internet users have it...but, if 5 years down the line 90% have it what will that mean for the future of the web? Basically, it will be the beginning of the end for free web pages. Most people block ads = much less revenue from ads = commercial websites need to find a new way of making money.
I don't think this is an unfeasible outcome. It may happen, it may not, but, Facebook's actions are effectively making this scenario much more likely.
On top of that, users used to have control over how much information was given in the news feed for stories they posted. Their options for most stories were to have a one-line statement on their feed, a short blurb about the post, or to display the post in full. This gave users a vital tool in reporting their own lives: relevance. Try and tell me that isn't a miscalculated exclusion from the update.
In the end, if their friends are still in Facebook, and it?s still hip, they would have to face reality and get used to the new layout (or they won?t even need to face reality, they just get used to it and get bored protesting). Just like earlier updates.
But from Zuckerberg?s comment, at least I learned that sending suggestion through the feedback is a waste of time.
And stopping innovation?! How is THIS innovation? It's just ripping off Twitter! As another poster said if I wanted Twitter, I'd use Twitter.
Furthermore, to the geek squad -- the ones who are stoked about the ability to create filters: NO ONE WANTS TO WASTE TIME CREATING FILTERS! Really, the point of the social networking site is the make it easier to communicate with people, to be a platform that doesn't interfere with communication. Now that the platform is uneven, poking out its head, people are leaving the site for *gasp* other social networking sites.
Like everyone's said: without the USER facebook is nothing.
[and they do pay for virtual gifts and such]
This doesn't mean that Facebook shouldn't listen at all to its customers, but it does mean that disruptive innovation is tough at first.
Never gonna happern
People have complained every time facebook has done something new. Time to get over it.
I have embraced all the changes to facebook over the last couple of years. They have all been for the better. But not this one. This last change is horrible. In my feed I get nothing but status updates and friends' idiotic quiz results.
Change it back - free service or not.
People need to start being productive again, not telling everyone they are out walking the dog.
The 4 areas I see as lacking in facebook are are.
1) Inability to adequately filter incoming broadcasts. Sorry but the all or nothing by friend filter doesnt cut it. Also I really hate the amount of incoming I get from applications.
2) Inability to adequately filter OUTGOING broadcasts. Everyone users twitter now and its difficult to politely exclude family members, coworkers, and 3rd string friends. Lets face it there are broadcasts you wish to share with your core friends and not your straight laced aunt in Pasadena, or your temperamental coworkers..
3) Applications. Nearly every application on face book has zero substance and is just a page flipping scam to create as many ad hits as possible. These applications all try to email all of your friends to spread viraly, and friends feel guilted to join in since you their good buddy "requested" them to.
4) Microblogging lacks substance in most contexts, 'm certain everyday people will grow weary of it and it will prove to be just another fad.
- by Dgatterdam March 22, 2009 3:34 PM PDT
- There is nothing I like about it and out of all of my friends no one has anything good to say about it.
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
-
- by deputydawg2006 March 22, 2009 9:19 PM PDT
- i am seruopusly thinking of giving it up, very soon, i do not like it. i had just joined about a month ago and just was getting a handle on it and it changed.
- Like this
-
Showing 1 of 2 pages (60 Comments)They took away the live feed and added that really useless highlights section on the side, no one know why or what gets chosen to be placed there.
Also HATE that they are trying to be twitter and dictating how many words we can write in certain places.
Really suck, I can understand if they were making it better but only made it almost intolerable.
Thinking of quitting it.