Today UIE posted a new podcast “The Book Of Face” with Phoenix’s own Robert Hoekman Jr.. The show discussed how facebook has been pretty good at “pissing their users off” and made mention of the whole newsfeed debacle. Back in September of 2006 Facebook first released the daily feed feature and as a result it caused a lot of ruckus. Shortly after the backlash came to be - I wrote a public note on Facebook about the entire situation. It was titled “Why newsfeeds are actually good and how Facebook messed up.” So here it is reposted again today on my blog:
1:54am Saturday, Sep 9, 2006
So they’ve been up for a while now, people have had their say, and the head honcho has responded to all of us. I honestly didn’t think much of the news-feeds when I first saw them. I was more concerned with the drastic change in the UI without warning. I think seeing something completely different coming onto a site you use everyday is just unacceptable. If you run a large social network keep it the same, implement changes GRADUALLY. Don’t surprise users with big changes let them adopt them! Invite us to TRY them.
Look at it this way: if news-feeds were slowly rolled out as an option, which could be activated, I think people would slowly have adopted them and been much more welcome to the concept. Instead, they were turned on FOR us. We weren’t asked. They just did it to us. That’s not a good way to treat your users. Hence the mess.
So the argument now is should they keep them? I say yes. I don’t see it as an invasion of privacy but more of a realization. All of the items that come up on these feeds are public information already. It’s not like it’s top secret when you write on someone’s wall or update your profile. You’re putting it up there for all of your friends to see already. If anything news-feeds are helping you stay in touch with what is going on in your friends lives by giving you a birds eye view of all of their activity and vice versa. The feeds actually are really useful.
But wait.. you say “No no Jimmy I still don’t like this at all… it just creeps me out.” OK so do one of two things A.) Don’t be so open about yourself on facebook! Or B.) Set your privacy settings accordingly so your actions don’t come up on the mini feed.
Once again.. the problem really is just that they set you up on something you didn’t request. If they asked you “Would you like to share your activity in the new facebook news feed feature - yes or no?” We wouldn’t have had this problem!
The moral of this story is that the problem was not the idea. The idea is good. The problem was the execution. Bad execution kills great ideas.
Now stop whining, set your privacy settings, take a break from facebook, and come back and enjoy yourself. Besides you’re all probably on facebook way too much. I know I have been.
Alex Berger Says:
9:29 amFeb 28I remember this one - a great note for sure. Very true as well - the general adoption and reliance now on the news feed is a definite indication that people were ok with the concept but just needed to be eased into it. We’re Millennials we’ll disclose our life story and then some given the chance. You just have to ease us into it and bypass the old privacy red alert. Though I have to say the big issue probably resulting in their recent number decrease is tied more to applications and their privacy issues than anything two things I don’t necessarily see changing and becoming more acceptable eg. The way of the news feed.
Jim Jeffers Says:
12:21 pmFeb 29Thanks Alex. I agree, data-portability and privacy concerns are going to be the greatest hurdles ’social media’ services like Facebook will have to overcome. They are in testy waters. Before it appeared like an innocent and fun tool. But now even the most naive users are realizing that they are openly giving up all of their information to a large corporation, and willingly. I honestly see this as the great realization that there are strings attached with these types of services, and to plan accordingly when using them.