Why the new Facebook is bad

I'm an avid (some would say addicted) Facebook user and Facebook recently decided to change it's home page and tweak various aspects of it's functionality. Not a new thing. The last tweek caused a mild hoo ha, but people soon found that it was actually better than the last one, and once they had found the new locations of their favourite bits, soon shut up and the world was happy once more.

However, last week, Facebook rolled out a new version of itself and in doing so, have created an almighty hoo ha!! Why? Well, I've been challenged on that subject a lot recently and it's hard to say in a short space, but last night I found this article, posted to a small group of Facebook users who are threatening a Facebook "suicide". By that, they mean they fully intend to delete their accounts on a given date, therefore showing Facebook that their new changes mean lost business.

Now, personally, I don't think this will actually work. In fact, I'm not sure what would have a major effect just yet. But I did find this article which describes, much better than I could, why the new Facebook is a major step backwards and suggests things we can do to get it changed back.

It may seem silly getting all antsy about a social networking site that lives off of our personal info, but it used to be a worthwhile trade off. Have the personal details I decide to share with you and you give me a networking model that actually enhances my real world life as well as provide much fun and amusement in the online world.

Anyway, have a read, and maybe it will clarify the matter....

We now have less function, choice, & a horrible, Twitter-like design. Here are action steps, comments, and links to Gawker, Huffington Post (GREAT article), Ars Technica, bloggers, etc.:

(as of 3/18 this Note is still getting revised at least daily)

Major fail. Facebook has gutted their site. What was once unique, deep, & flexible, and good for keeping-up with friends, is evolving into a rigid and equally shallow Twitter clone, except not as good as Twitter for real-time stream-of-consciousness. Assuming facebookers even wanted that. We're on facebook for a REASON (i.e.--it isn't Twitter).

I can put up with virtually any sort of cosmetic change, even their latest cluttered, screen-space-wasting, "simple", child-oriented, large-print, mono-font, photo-laden, extra-super-wide-screen, ad-filled, no-longer-real-time, badly-Twitter-emulating, "ease of use" mis-design.

But the rest of this re-design is mostly "steps backward", removing functionality & choice, and I see few improvements. I don't think they'll un-do all the changes they've made, and I'm not advocating that, but here's SOME of the major steps backward they've taken that they should fix:

Fewer News Feed options: The new single-option feed is the worst of both worlds. For those that liked the old, regular News Feed, which was pretty good, you probably don't like that you're now getting a firehose of trivial information that you didn't used to have to see. And they removed nearly all the ability (Story Types sliders) to customize what it gives you.

Less feed depth: For those that liked to see everything, removing the compact "Live Feed" option is an absolute crime. The new feed gives you all of the trivia, in a space-wasting format, but none of the depth that Live Feed offered. Even if you never used Live Feed, several of your friends likely were. Which means they easily saw more of what you were doing. Which let them get more involved more often in stuff you & others were doing, find new events, friends, groups, etc.

Activity, connectivity, and interaction is going to suffer without Live Feed. Now the most you can see on Home is a random selection of whatever facebook has decided you might be interested in. Long after it's happened. And you will now never see when your friends join events, groups, etc...unless by some miracle it occasionally shows in the randomly disorganized, un-filterable Highlights. You will definitely see every time they give a shamrock to someone though. Whether you want to or not. You will no longer see when your friends edit their profile (because they gained/lost an interest/hobby/job/relationship), comment on photos, etc.

If you miss the Live Feed, you can still use a poor imitation of what it was by going to facebook's mobile site and clicking "Live" under "News Feed"
http://m.facebook.com

You'd have to check it more often, since it carries fewer entries than the old Live Feed. Of course, facebook will probably "improve" this work-around away....

More Twitbook: The Status Update re-design is so bad it will remain permanently un-clear & confusing to people until they fix it. And the new treatment of it greatly encourages, emphasizes, & publicizes heavy real-time Twitter-like updating. Which isn't even real-time because the new feed lags greatly behind the Live Feed and News Feed of before.

And isn't it great how statuses on a user's Wall are no longer bold...so you can't easily tell a Status from a Wall post. Though that, along with the removal of the Status tab from Home, serves facebook's apparent plan to degrade facebook into a stream-of-consciousness, 100 daily updates per-person Twitbook.

Less Wall privacy: They've removed the privacy option which left you the choice of timestamping your activity or not. At least with this bad decision they were a little sensible & decided to reduce timestamping rather than making it required. Except they reduced it so far, you can't even tell what day your friends did things on their Wall! It's all just a blur of "recent activity".

The new facebook is about shallow-ness, being harder to connect with people, and less choice...less choice in your feeds, privacy, etc. The new facebook inundates everyone with trivia, while at the same time robbing heavy users of all depth. If facebook stays this course, of those that remain on facebook, many will stop using the Home page. Interaction will slow down, facebook will get used more as just an email contact point, and many will rarely login, except to see the trickle of stuff that occasionally gets posted directly to their own Wall.

WHAT TO DO?

Complain to facebook daily:
http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=uex_feedback_home
(my theory is that they'll be able to digest your email better if you make it be 1 issue per email)
Write daily, not just once. Zuckerberg already thinks that after people use the new design for a few days they'll realize they like it. No, they won't.

Join some of the "Bring back Live Feed" Groups (& invite your friends, because many of them may not know the group exists, or that you joined because...there is no Live Feed. And tell them to invite their friends!)
Last I checked, there are 3 big Groups that are about each the same size right now. Which is kind of a shame since we'd attract more notice if we were 1 Group at 3x the size.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=56846233169
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=57945102893
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=57437231871

Complain to the CEO daily: (or even more often) Become a fan of the Mark Zuckerberg page (child CEO of facebook who seems to be in over his head now) and make some comments or Wall posts
http://www.facebook.com/markzuckerberg

Comment on facebook's blog post about the re-design daily: (or even more often)
http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=59195087130

Other Groups? There are some other big Groups against "new facebook"...but most seem to date back to the previous big revision. A few of them have updated their "mission statement" to now be against the new "new facebook", but simply joining those won't bring a lot of notice, the facebook admins realize many members were complaining about the prior revision. Still, I'd join 1 or 2 of the largest, most up-to-date Groups, because they might make some interesting organizational posts to help get things going against this latest revision. Here's a big, older one, with updated activity & mission statement:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=27233634858

Here's a pretty big one that's brand-new and it's trying to also organize a vote and a protest/boycott day:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=74571831419

Here's a large "cause" advocating reverting to prior facebook
http://apps.facebook.com/causes/245918

Again, invite your friends to Groups you join, because it's now a lot harder for them to see when you've found a good one.

Spread the word: The URL for this Note is:
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=61010781930
and it is viewable to anyone. Post it to your Wall, put it in your Status (i.e.--"Force facebook to fix this screw-up, here's how: http://...")! Then all of your friends will see it every day.

Let the media know we're unhappy: Please digg this Note by going to
http://digg.com/software/Facebook_s_latest_re_design_gone_wrong_what_to_do

Anyone have other media ideas? Be sure to digg at least some of the articles below. Anyone have media contacts?

Contact your local TV stations (through facebook even?) and make them aware of the controversy on facebook? If you'd like ideas how to do that, at the bottom of this Note is some sample text.

WEB ARTICLES

Read more in-depth, interesting commentary about these and other ways in which facebook has screwed-up with this re-design:

http://gawker.com/5172407/what-was-mark-zuckerberg-smoking-when-he-redesigned-facebook (digg this one!)

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/03/17/BU2416GB4F.DTL (digg this)

http://fakerake.com/2009/298/the-new-facebook-sucks (digg this one!)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-willman/facebooks-lousy-facelift_b_175358.html (digg this one!)

http://matt-erof-fact.blogspot.com/2009/03/10-reasons-why-facebook-now-sucks.html

http://arstechnica.com/web/news/2009/03/hands-on-facebooks-new-homepage-adds-and-loses-control.ars

http://www.lefteye.com/2009/03/twitbook-thanks-but-i-already-have.html

An editor at cnet.com was already quoted as saying "I haven't seen notable mass grumbling over it. It's clearly been influenced by the popularity of Twitter, and I think it gets the feel of that quick, instant stream of updates without totally mimicking it." And another one posted a shallow, all-positive review. I'm sending those editors an email
:)

WHY THE CHANGES?

Some have theorized the new Twitbook is so Twitter-like that clearly facebook was [erroneously] worried about competition from the much smaller Twitter community.

You can see from this video that facebook thinks the world should be streams:
http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/techbeat/archives/2009/03/sxsw_facebooks.html
But apparently they're only interested in people who want to spend all their time keeping-up with a firehose of trivial updates.

Others suggested that facebook felt the need to dumb-down the site to attract users who are averse to depth and "sophisticated" tools.

Another suggestion is that by strictly controlling what we get to see and how we get to see it, it's easier for facebook to guarantee that we see the ads they want us to see, making it easier for them to make money off facebook.

FUN: If you've read this far, you deserve a prize. How about a new profile picture?
http://i321.photobucket.com/albums/nn382/balebond/facebook-fail.gif

WHAT TO SAY TO MEDIA OUTLETS

Here is what Elizabeth Whitmore Gloger posted on the Wall of her local TV station: "The mainstream media needs to get involved with the huge backlash going on at Facebook right now. This "anti-update" that was rolled-out last week has people thinking about quitting Facebook entirely, and the rest confused, complaining, and unhappy.

Some concise explanations of just what is wrong, and some of the attempts to make a difference and get Facebook to respond to its users can be found here:
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=61010781930

Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook backtracked in a big way last year when they rolled out Beacon and the users revolted--will you help us cause another revolution? Facebook becoming Twitter is a huge mistake, and this so-called update was a giant step backwards for what was the best social network out there. There was a reason Facebook attracted 175 million users and Twitter only has 6 million. Facebook just removed most of those reasons. Will you help make a difference?